Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530-1790 [Course Book ed.] 9781400858262

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EMERGENCE OF A BUREAUCRACY

EMERGENCE OF A B U R E A U C R A C Y The Florentine Patricians 1 5 3 0 - 1 7 9 0

R. B U R R

LITCHFIELD

P R I N C E T O N , NEW J E R S E Y P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

I986

COPYRIGHT © I 9 8 6 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 41 WILLIAM STREET PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Ο854Ο IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, GUILDFORD, SURREY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA WILL BE FOUND ON THE LAST PRINTED PAGE OF THIS BOOK ISBN O-69I-O5487-8 PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM THE PUBLICATIONS PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES AN INDEPENDENT FEDERAL AGENCY THIS BOOK HAS BEEN COMPOSED IN LINOTRON BEMBO CLOTHBOUND EDITIONS OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS BOOKS ARE PRINTED ON ACID-FREE PAPER, AND BINDING MATERIALS ARE CHOSEN FOR STRENGTH AND DURABILITY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

Vli >

LISTS OF FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Xl

ABBREVIATIONS AND UNITS OF MEASUREMENT INTRODUCTION PART I:

Xlii 3

THE PATRICIANS AS A SOCIAL GROUP FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE HAPSBURG-LORRAINE

ι. The Legacy of the Renaissance Republic

II

13

2. Adaptation to the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century

Medici Court

24

3. The Eighteenth-Century Libri di Oro of the

Hapsburg-Lorraine

52

PART 11: THE NEW BUREAUCRACY OF THE MEDICI DUKES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

63

4. From Magistrates to Functionaries

65

5. The Expansion of the Central Bureaucracy

84

6. Central and Provincial Offices

110

PART III; THE PATRICIANS IN THE BUREAUCRACY

127

7 . Theory and Practice of the Mixed State

129

8. The Relocation of Patricians by Type of Office

141

PART i v : THE PATRIMONIALISM OF PATRICIAN FUNCTIONARIES 9. Training and Appointment 10. Careers and Salaries PART v :

155 157 182

PATRICIAN WEALTH AND DUCAL POLICY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

201

11. The Changing Fortunes of the Patricians

203

12. The Economic Policy of Patrimonialism

233

ν

CONTENTS P A R T V I : T H E R E M A K I N G OF T H E B U R E A U C R A C Y IN T H E E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y BY T H E H A P S B U R G LORRAINE

263

13. The Regency for Francis Stephen, 1 7 3 7 - 6 5

265

14.. The Leopoldine Reforms, 176S-90

283

15. The Exit of the Patricians from Office

313

CONCLUSION

336

APPENDIX A Tables on Offices, Officeholders,

and Salaries

339

APPENDIX B Summary Information about Patrician Houses

362

BIBLIOGRAPHY

383

INDEX

"

vi

397

TABLES

1.1 2.1 3.1 4.1

Fifteenth-Century Priors

19

Ennobling of Fifteenth-Century Florentine Houses, 1500-1750

35

Houses Registered in the Florentine Libri di Oro, 1751-1800

58

Distribution of Offices in the Florentine Magistracies, 1551-1604

7.1 9.1

74

Characteristics of the Identified Patrician Elite

136

Permanent Offices Occupied by Lawyers and Notaries, 1551-1736

160

10.1

Age, Marital Status, and Careers of Patrician Functionaries 184

10.2

Mean Salaries: Status, Training, and Type of Office

196

11.1

Investment in Accomandite, 1 6 0 4 - 1 7 3 6

208

11.2

Development of Patrician Decima Accounts, 1 5 3 4 - 1 7 7 6

218

12.1

Wool and Silk Production in Florence, 1 5 5 3 - 1 7 6 0

241

14.1

Functional Divisions within the Bureaucracy in 1784

289

A. 1

Development of Offices in the Florentine Bureaucracy, 340

1551-1784 A.2

Distribution of Offices by Social Group, 1 5 5 1 - 1 7 8 4

352

A.3

Mean Provvisioni,

358

Incerti, and Total Salaries, 1 5 5 1 - 1 7 8 4

vii

FIGURES

2. ι 12. ι

Index of Population, Baptisms, and New Citizens in Florence, 1500-1800 Grain Prices in Tuscany, 1546-1766

47 247

ILLUSTRATIONS (following p. 178)

1.

G. Zocchi, View of the Vffizi (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

2.

G. Vasari, Cosimo I De Medici (Alinari)

3. J. Callot, Ferdinando I De Medici (Soprintendenza Beni Artistici e Storici di Firenze) 4. 5.

F. Palma, Pietro Usimbardi (Alinari) Vincenzo Da Filicaia (Soprintendenza Beni Artistici e Storici di

Firenze) 6.

Marchese Carlo Ginori (Uffizi, Gabinetto di Disegni)

7.

Pompeo Neri

8.

Pietro Leopoldo (Uffizi, Gabinetto di Disegni)

9.

Central Italy and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the Eighteenth Century

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study received early support from a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 1971-72, and then continuing support in computer time and other matters from Brown University. I owe much to the directors and staff of Florentine libraries, and of the Archivio di Stato, initially Dott. Guido Pampaloni and more recently Dott. Giuseppe Pansini, whose expertise in the history of Tuscan administration was invaluable. During the years of elaboration of this study, I have become indebted to many friends and colleagues who have offered valuable assistance. Professors Giorgio Spini and Sergio Bertelli of the University of Florence, Eric Cochrane of the University of Chicago, Robert Forster of Johns Hopkins University, and David Herlihy of Harvard encouraged me in early stages of the study. My trips to Florence were made pleasant by the hospitality of Margherita and Rosalia Pepi, who also permitted me to make use of their family archive. My colleagues at Brown were also of assistance. W. F. Church, L. P. Curtis, F. Fido, B. Lyon, A. Molho, D. Underdown, and G. Wood read parts of the manuscript at different stages of its elabora­ tion and made helpful suggestions. A. Molho, particularly, was helpful through his expertise in Florentine history and his many contacts in Florence. Professor Furio Diaz of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and Professor Giuseppe Ricuperati of the University of Turin also of­ fered assistance and advice. Finally, but not least, my mother, Susan Burr Litchfield, was a source of continual support and encouragement.

Providence, Rhode Island DECEMBER 1985

Xl

ABBREVIATIONS

ASA

Archivio di Stato Arezzo

ASF

Archivio di Stato Firenze

ASP

Archivio di Stato Pisa

BNF

Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze

BR

Biblioteea Riccardiana, Firenze

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

Until 1751 the Florentine year was reckoned to begin on March 25th. Thus, by modern reckoning, dates injanuary through March were as­ cribed to the preceding year. Whenever possible dates have been ex­ pressed according to the modern system. Florentine currency stabilized in the first years of the Duchy with two gold moneys of account: the Florin (which was divided into 20 Soldi of 12 Denari), and the Scudo valued at 7 Lire of silver (the Lira was likewise divided into 20 Soldi of 12 Denari). In the mid-sixteenth century the Florin was worth about 7 percent more than the Scudo. Monetary values have been expressed throughout in the two moneys of account, which remained unchanged through the eighteenth century, although the gold/silver parity of minted currency became increasingly inflated in terms of silver. (On Tuscan currency under the Duchy, see A. Galeotti, Le monete del Granducato.) In Florentine territory the unit of dry measure (for grain) was the Staio, which was equivalent to approximately 24 liters, or 0.68 bushels. The unit of surface measure (for land) was the Stioro, which was equiv­ alent to approximately 0.06 hectares, or 0.14 acres.

Xlll

EMERGENCE OF A BUREAUCRACY

INTRODUCTION

In the eighteenth century, Florence still looked much as it did during the Renaissance, appearing immobile through the vicissitudes of time. Yet as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries it had undergone an important evolution in government. The end of the Republic in 1530 marked the beginning of a new stage in Florentine history. The Medici dukes preserved the independence of the Florentine state and extended the territory of the Republic to include the state of Siena to the south. They also adapted the institutions of the Republic to the government of a regional Duchy, so that in 1737, when the Medicis were replaced by the dynasty of Hapsburg-Lorraine and Tuscany became attached to the Hapsburg Empire, Florence was the regional capital of the fifth largest Italian state. Foreign travelers visited the public buildings: the Palazzo Vecchio with its imposing tower, the squares, churches, monasteries, ducal palaces, galleries, and gardens. They also visited the palaces of patrician nobles along the narrow streets. Some of these dwellings seemed relics of a long-gone age of opulence. But the involvement of the Florentine patricians in the commerce and industry that had created the city's medieval wealth had persisted, their landed estates were scattered through the countryside, and despite the transition from city Republic to regional Duchy they had kept control of the local government. Notaries, lawyers, and petitioners, who came in from the lesser towns to do business in the law courts and magistracies of the capital, waited for patrician functionaries in anterooms and corridors of the Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi, and other buildings used as offices for the bureaucracy of the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century dukes. During his visit to Florence in 1728, Montesquieu noticed the extent to which old families dominated offices in the Florentine bureaucracy: "There is hardly a family that does not have some small place that earns 15, 20, 30, or 50 Scudi a month. The most menial jobs in France, even places in the customs house, are exercised [in Florence] by nobles, and often only by them." 1 1

Montesquieu, Voyages de Montesquieu, 1, 174.

3

INTRODUCTION

This study focuses on the growth of bureaucracy in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Tuscany, and on the changing role of the Florentine patricians as functionaries of the ducal state. Relatively few studies have been made of the relationship between social groups and institutions in this period of Italian history, which one important recent book about Florence has called "the forgotten centuries."2 Anglo-American histo­ rians particularly tend to focus attention either on the Renaissance or on contemporary Italy after the Risorgimento. In this they follow the judgments of nineteenth-century Italians echoed in Benedetto Croce's Storia dell' eta barocca in Italia more than a generation ago, which pic­ tured the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries as a period of weakness, for­ eign domination, and moral decline.3 The fortunes of Italy changed significantly in this period. But the excessive focus on Renaissance or Risorgimento obscures the sequence of developments in time by claim­ ing for the earlier period a too-early point of arrival, or for the later pe­ riod too much of a break. The evolution of the form of government in the regional states of Italy, which underlay emergence of the modern state, is an important development of the sixteenth to eighteenth cen­ turies that has been insufficiently understood because of this bias. In an important article, Federico Chabod once posed the question, "Was there a state of the Renaissance?" He answered the question largely affirmatively in consideration of the Visconti-Sforza Duchy of Milan, which by the mid-fifteenth century had developed a staff of of­ ficials of a roughly modern type.4 Florence under the Republic had ac­ quired many of the same characteristics by the same date.5 But one should not overemphasize the modernity of the city-states of fifteenthcentury Italy. No one could deny the overwhelming importance of Renaissance statecraft in such areas as law, public finance, administra­ tive practice, and the development of political thought. Later experi­ ence built upon the strengths of Renaissance statecraft, but also inherJ

Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries. For a discussion of this problem in Ital­

ian historiography, see Musi, ed., Stato e pubblica Amministrazione, 121-53. 1

Croce, Storia dell' eta barocca.

4

Chabod, "Y a-t-il un etat de la Renaissance?" 57-74, commenting on Santoro, Gli

uffici del dominio Sforzesca. See also Santoro, Gli uffici del comune di Milano. 5

Marzi, La cancelleria della repubblica fiorentina\

Rubenstein, Government of Florence·,

Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft; and most recently, Guidi, Il govemo della citta-repubblica di Firenze.

INTRODUCTION

ited its weaknesses, including the failure to achieve a unified Italian national state. The new developments in the regional states of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries consisted partly of greater centralization of authority through local forms of absolutism, partly of new institutions, and partly of an evolution of more advanced administrative procedures and personnel. They instilled new political habits and made a lasting contribution to the character of modern Italy. Much attention has been given to the nature of absolute monarchy in northern Europe during these centuries, following insights of Weber and his precursors and the works of Mousnier, Hartung, Rosenberg, and others. 6 It has been recognized that absolutist states developed not only through the exercise of kingship and theories of sovereignty, but also through the steady growth in number of officials who made up the new royal bureaucracies. Initially recruited to aid in the extention of the authority of the king, these corps of functionaries developed a life of their own, reflecting the interests of the social groups from which they were appointed, expectations for performance in office, and other habits of administration that strongly affected the nature and aims of politics. It has been perceived that the patrimonial character of early officialdom differed significantly in discipline from the rational-legal organization that appeared in more modern bureaucracies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.7 Bureaucratic elites have emerged as key groups, not only in France, where monarchical absolutism reached its fullest development, but also in England, Germany, and Russia.8 However, despite the early guidance of Chabod, less attention has been given to these developments in Italy of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.9 What was the character of officialdom in Italian regional states? The 6

Mousnier, La venalite des offices sous Henri IVet Louis XVIII; Mousnier and Hartung, "Quelques problemes," IV, 1-55; Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy. 7 Note the discussion of this matter in Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy, 1-25, and more recently in R. E. Giesey, "State Building in Early Modern France," 191-207. 8 Among more recent studies, for England, see Aylmer, The King's Servants; for France, Harding, Anatomy ofa Power Elite; for Germany, Vann, The Making ofa State; for Russia, Pinter and Rowney, eds., Russian Officialdom; and in general the works cited in Tilly, ed., The Formation ofNational States. 9 But note Berengo and Diaz, "Noblesse et administration dans l'ltalie de la Renaissance," I, 151-63, and particularly the studies cited in Fasano Guarini, ed., Potere e societa.

S

INTRODUCTION

Grand Duchy of Tuscany is offered here as a case example, and there were some significant differences from developments north of the Alps. In northern Europe, bureaucracy is generally considered to have been an outgrowth of feudal monarchy: royal officials were employed in the task of curbing feudal nobles, administering justice, and levying taxes over an extensive territory, which furthered development of na­ tional states within still predominantly agrarian economies. Feudalism and absolutism were closely linked, while capitalism and the monied middle class developed dialectically within this underlying structure of land-based relationships. Although royal officials were often bour­ geois, ennobled bourgeois, or tamed service nobles, the social effect of absolutism was to stabilize social relationships temporarily within late feudalism.10 In northern Italy, however, regional states and bureaucra­ cies developed directly out of communal institutions of the medieval city, and the ruling elites continued more persistently to be mercantile and capitalist in character.11 Feudal states did not develop on a national scale, a problem that some writers have interpreted to mean that Italy had a false, or imperfect, state-building experience. Perry Anderson writes: "The diversity of towns produced a kind of'micro-absolutism' only—a proliferation of petty princedoms that crystallized the divi­ sions of the country. . . .Unabletoproduceanationalabsolutismfrom within, Italy was condemned to suffer an alien one from without."12 After languishing under dominance of more successful feudal state builders—the French, Spanish, and Austrians—it was left in the nine­ teenth century to the more "feudal" Savoy dynasty and Piedmont to unify the peninsula. Developments in Tuscany confirm the commercial and urban, rather than feudal and rural, character of Italian regional absolutism, and also show that rather than being a dead-end route from which Italy was fi­ nally rescued by Piedmont, the transition from city-state to regional state in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries produced a technically ad•° The Marxist position on this issue is synthesized in Anderson, Lineages of the Abso­ lutist State. With a quite different intellectual perspective, the recent more Weberian syn­ thesis of R. Bendix also emphasizes the close relationship between Absolutism and Feu­ dalism; see Bendix, Kings and People, 247-49. " But in southern Italy, developments were more similar to those of northern Europe; see V. I. Comparato, Uffizi e societa a Napoli. 12

Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, 166-67.

INTRODUCTION

vanced bureaucracy that made a legitimate contribution to Italian tradition. In this change the Florentine patricians had an important role, and thus they have been given a central place in this study. It was once thought that Cosimo I De Medici, who effected the institutional transition from Republic to Duchy in the 1530s to 1560s, ended the political dominance of the mercantile dynasties that had ruled the Renaissance Republic, and that the economic fortunes of these families were then reversed by precipitous economic decline.13 In the long run this view has proved difficult to sustain. The ruling class of the Florentine Republic acquired a veneer of noble titles at the ducal Court, and there was clearly a commercial and industrial crisis in the urban economy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries during what has been called the economic "decline of Italy," which saw a growth in landed patrimonies of the elite. But one should not make a too-hasty connection between "refeudalization" and the development of regional absolutism. Instead, the seventeenth-century crisis produced a defensive stabilization of existing social relationships. The patricians, who became the dominant group in Medicean officialdom, remained a predominantly mercantile elite, and acted through the ducal bureaucracy to defend traditional urban interests of Florentine society through the seventeenth-century crisis. Despite the feudal veneer of the Court, there was no true backward step in class relationships. The ducal bureaucracy continued to reflect the established mercantile and urban bias of Tuscan society. Still, the bureaucracy of the patricians and Medici dukes was not yet that of a modern state. It remained a type of patrimonial administration. A modern bureaucracy emerged more clearly in the eighteenth century when the patricians were pushed out of office by the Hapsburg-Lorraine and replaced largely by middle-class functionaries. In this later transition there was, to be sure, ultimately a debate about the ideal form of the state, but there was no bourgeois revolution of the French type directed against an absolutistic and feudal order. Instead, other middle-class groups in ascent imitated the earlier tactics of the patricians themselves. They gained power by infiltration behind the 13 Antonio Anzilotti, La costituzione interna dello statofiorentino, 154. This is not, however, to deny the importance of works of Anzilotti for understanding the institutions of the Medici Duchy. Note particularly his "Il tramonto dello stato cittadino," 72-105.

7

INTRODUCTION

scenes. Such oblique tactics of assimilation later were of key impor­ tance in the Risorgimento, and after i860 they contributed to habits of political behavior in the Italian unified state, helping to produce the tendency, in Gramsci's terms, for Italian social revolutions to be in ret­ rospect rivoluzioni mancate. In short, the capitalist development of Ren­ aissance Florence gave the ducal bureaucracy of the sixteenth to eight­ eenth centuries a precocious character, affected the composition of officialdom, and left its mark on the habits of local politics. Late Ren­ aissance state building left a long-term but direct legacy to state build­ ers of the Risorgimento. The exposition of this theme for the long time period of the early six­ teenth to late eighteenth centuries has required a topical ordering of chapters in this book. The method employed borrows techniques of prosopography, and what has sometimes been called "serial history," in which one attempts to trace developments systematically over a long period of time. 14 Since the relationship of the Florentine patricians to offices in the ducal bureaucracy has been of primary interest, Part I traces the continuity and coherence of the patricians as a social group from the fifteenth century through the eighteenth. Part II traces the emergence of the new bureaucratic officialdom of the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century dukes, the institutional innovation of this period. Part III traces the infiltration of the patricians into the new offices. Parts IV and V set forth the patrimonial character of officialdom in the areas of training, appointments, careers, and salaries, and the relationship of the private fortunes of the patricians to the economic policy of the ducal regime. Despite a shift of investments from commerce to land, the pa­ tricians and the dukes persisted in a strongly mercantilist policy de­ signed to protect traditional urban interests of the capital. Part VI traces the evolution of Florentine officialdom in the eighteenth century under the new dynasty of the Hapsburg-Lorraine, when the bureaucracy was rebuilt along more modern lines. Also in the eighteenth century, the Duchy began to be absorbed into a larger political entity, a develop­ ment not resolved until 1859-60, in favor of Piedmont and a united It­ aly rather than of Austria and the Hapsburg Empire, as was the initial 14

See Stone, "Prosopography," and Furet, "Quantitative History."

INTRODUCTION

direction. When this happened, the hegemony of the patricians had al­ ready ended; but even after absorption of the Grand Duchy into the Italian monarchy, underlying habits of political behavior from the six­ teenth to eighteenth centuries that had emerged from the marriage of patrician interests and ducal absolutism remained.

PART I

THE PATRICIANS AS A SOCIAL GROUP FROM THE REPUBLIC TO THE HAPSBURG-LORRAINE

THE LEGACY OF THE RENAISSANCE REPUBLIC

To see the development and particular character of the Florentine elite through time, one must consider its medieval and Renaissance origins and the changes that affected it under the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century dukes. Although never a legally closed body like the nobles of Venice or Genova, and still less a feudal class like the magnates of Sicily or the Kingdom of Naples, the Florentine patricians were nonetheless similar to urban nobles elsewhere in Italy.1 The term "patrician" is what the Florentines ultimately adopted to evoke their own particular character. The feudal nobility of Tuscany had lost most of its impor­ tance in the commercial expansion of the thirteenth to fifteenth centu­ ries. In the eighteenth century some surnames survived from the clans that had controlled the region before emergence of the city, and a few feudal dynasties still had fiefs in the Apennines to the north and west of the city, or in the hills of Pisa and Volterra to the south and east. But the commercial development of Florence gave the patricians their spe­ cial character. Some popolani among the consuls and priors of the com­ munal government were of feudal origin, but the wealth of others was formed in the city's cloth industry and merchant ventures. At the end of the thirteenth century control was secured by merchants of the guilds. The feudal nobles of the countryside and their allies in the city were branded as magnati. They were excluded from office and with­ drew to their distant holdings or continued to live in Florence as pow­ erful families prohibited from active participation in politics. Many ' The Florentine patricians were like those of Milan; see Calvi, "II patriziato Milanese," 101-47; Arese, "Nobilta e patriziato dello stato di Milano." For Lucca, see Berengo, Nobili e mercanti a Lucca net '500. For Genova and Venice, see Nicora, "La nobilta genovese dal 1528 al 1700," n, 219-310; J. C. Davis, The Decline of the Venetian Nobility. For con­ trasts with "feudal" nobles of Piedmont and Sicily, see Woolf, Studi sulla nobilta piemontese, and Pontieri, Il tramonto del baronaggio siciliano.

PART I

renounced their origins, matriculated into the guilds, and were assim­ ilated into the political elite.2 Florence continued its rapid growth in the fourteenth century, and its population was partly replenished after the Black Death through im­ migration from the smaller towns and the countryside. Rapid but un­ even growth created tensions between old and new families in the rul­ ing group, and between the merchants and masters of the major guilds and the artisans and workers in the cloth shops and minor trades. As the city confronted the economic crises of the fourteenth century and expanded territorially, its institutions grew in complexity, and access to offices was defined in a more regular manner. The fourteenth-cen­ tury regulations defining citizenship and eligibility for office had a last­ ing importance in distinguishing the patrician class as a whole. The electoral procedures continued into the eighteenth century. Citizenship of Florence, which required residence in the city, matriculation into one of the guilds, and inscription into the militia, was only the first step toward selection for the councils and magistracies. The highest offices of the Republic, the Tre Maggiori, were the Signoria (the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia and eight priors) and the councils of the Collegi (the sixteen Gonfalonieri of the militia and twelve Buonomini). The Gonfaloniere and priors assumed executive authority. In the fourteenth century, these highest offices became more differentiated from the growing number of less important administrative ones and from the Vicariati and Capitanati, judgeships in the towns of the territorial dominion. Officeholders changed every few months. After 1328 they were se­ lected at all levels by lot from men passing the scrutinies of citizens in­ scribed in the guilds in accordance with the procedures of the Tratte.3 After the failure of the Ciompi uprising of minor guildsmen and un­ organized workers in 1378, families in the major guilds acquired per­ manent control of the executive councils. First, two-thirds and then three-quarters of the places in the Signoria and two Collegi were re­ served for men passing the scrutinies of the Arti Maggiori, as were a majority of places in such other important magistracies as the Otto di 3

On the elite in the thirteenth century, see Fiumi, "Fioritura e decadenza"; Davidsohn,

Storia di Firenze, 1, chap. 12; n, chap. 7; 111, chap. 14. 3

Guidi, Governo della citta-repubblica di Firenze, 1, 5-15; Marzi, La cancelleria delta repub-

blica fiorentina,

106-109. On the constitution in the fourteenth century in general, see

Brucker, Florentine Politics·, Becker, Florence in Transition, 1.

LEGACY OF THE RENAISSANCE REPUBLIC

Guardia e Balia, which provided for internal security, and the Dieci di Guerra, which was charged with war and defense.4 Thus the full exercise of citizenship was unequally distributed among the different groups that made up the Renaissance city's social hierarchy. At an upper level a few ancient feudal houses and popolani who had been branded as magnati in the previous century were ex­ cluded from active participation in government. At a lower level, men inscribed in the minor trades were accorded only a limited participa­ tion. The mass of workers in the unorganized trades and the miserabili who paid no taxes were excluded from offices. The ruling group was recruited among men in the middle and upper strata of wealth from the major guilds: wool and silk merchants, merchant bankers, and law­ yers. The preservation of the Republic required their continual vigi­ lance, both against the feudal lords of the Dominion who might act in concert with neighboring states against the common interest, and against the popolo minuto whose egalitarian tendencies might prove to be equally ruinous to the regime.5 Florentine politics in the fifteenth century thus reflected a delicate balance among groups. This equilibrium contributed to the vitality of the Renaissance city, but also left it in peril of political crisis. Newcom­ ers and men from the minor guilds could gain admission to the scruti­ nies for offices and to the horse for the Maggiori, yet the electoral pro­ cedures favored the more established families.6 After 1412 these families further protected their influence by admitting men whose fa­ thers or grandfathers had been selected for the Maggiori for consider­ ation automatically in the scrutinies as benefiziati. Only a limited num­ ber of newcomers could be admitted when the lists were renewed. The ascendancy of the Medici after 1434 depended on the support of this more established group. The Medici then influenced the composition of the political elite through accoppiatori who managed the scrutinies, 4

On the officeholding group at the end of the fourteenth century, see Brucker, Flor­

entine Politics, chap. 8; Molho, "Politics and the Ruling Class," 442-62; and the full study of this matter by Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus. !

Note the discussion in Rubinstein, "Florentine Constitutionalism," 442-62, and in

Bertelli, Ilpotere oligarchico, 117-68. 6

On the restriction of the effective officeholding group at the end of the fourteenth

century, see Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus, 276-300.

PART I

made up the horse, and arranged the drawings of officeholders.7 Despite the regulations that prohibited successive or simultaneous tenure of of­ fice by the members of a single casata or consorteria, a relatively small number of names appeared frequently among the priors of the Signoria. At the time of the reaction against the Medici and creation of the broader-based Consiglio Maggiore of Savonarola in 1494, only some ι, 500 men, in a total urban population of 50,000 to 60,000, claimed ad­ mission to the new council, either because of their own selection for the highest offices or that of their fathers or grandfathers. The restricted size of the officeholding group becomes understandable when one con­ siders that males twenty-five to seventy years of age, the customary age for officeholding, might normally have comprised 15 to 20 percent of the total population. It is estimated that the number of males eligible for offices in Florence at all levels in a given year during the fifteenth century was 2,000 to 2,500, 4 percent of the total population, although this number may have risen to 3,200 to 4,000, 6 percent, under the more egalitarian practices of the revolutionary regimes of 1494 and 1527.8 The identity of families in the fifteenth-century officeholding elite can be discovered from prioriste, lists of priors by family or casata, many of which were compiled at the time of the Republic or after its col­ lapse.9 The prioriste, however, do not necessarily show the changing in­ ner groups who actually controlled power, and whose influence de­ pended on personal influence, political circumstance, and other factors. Still, family names have an important place in Florentine history and had a particular significance for the officials of the Tratte who super­ vised the drawings of priors. This is because the rights of the benefiziati who were to be included in successive scrutinies and the divieti, which excluded members of the same family from simultaneous or successive tenure of certain offices, depended on a conventional definition of the family and kinship group. The household living arrangements of Flor­ entines in the upper strata of wealth do not appear to have differed con7

For the fifteenth-century electoral procedures, see Rubinstein, The Government of Florence, 30-67 et passim. 8 Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 388-89. On the reforms and number of benefiziati at the time of the Savonarolian Republic, see Rubinstein, "I pnmi anni del consiglio mag­ giore," 151-94, 321-47. 9

ASF, Inventario Manoscritti, passim. 16

LEGACY OF THE RENAISSANCE REPUBLIC

siderably from those of a later age. The patrician household was pre­ dominantly nuclear, although it might be augmented with servants or retainers.10 Immigration to the city had tended to break down the larger households of the countryside, but had not destroyed a sense of kinship among households. Sons continued the traditions of the pater­ nal house or established independent but linked collateral branches. Such lineages might seem to have had little in common other than a sin­ gle ancestor or a common surname, yet cousins preserved a sense of identity with the larger group. For the purposes of the scrutinies and drawings for offices, kinsmen were considered to be common mem­ bers of a casata or consorteria, a group of common paternal descent. The officials of the Tratte determined membership in a casata by three or four degrees of male consanguinity: great-grandfather, grand­ father, father, and sons." Being a member of this line could confer ad­ mission of the benefizio to the scrutinies, while more distant relatives might be assumed to belong to different casate and thus be designated as distinct by an adjunct to their surnames or by a precise indication of the gonfalone of the city in which they were inscribed. Like the Roman gens, a casata might include cousins, and except for families with very many branches, it might approximate an entire group of common ge­ nealogical descent. Casate of older establishment tended to be larger than more recently established ones, although entirely new casate, with new surnames, might break off from older ones and be declared sepa­ rate and distinct.12 Careful distinctions were made by the officials of the 10

Goldthwaite, Private Wealth, 251-58 et passim. Yet it would appear that the house­

holds of wealthier Florentines, at least at the time of the 1427 Catasto, were larger than those of the less wealthy and were more likely to include both kin and servants; see Klapisch, "Household and Family in Tuscany," 272-81. More diffuse kinship relationships among households than are apparent from internal household organization linked to­ gether members of casate. On this, see Kent, Household and Lineage, passim. " See Rubinstein, "I primi anni del consiglio maggiore," 178-93, for the problems that arose when determining the membership of the Consiglio Maggiore of 1494. The legis­ lation most frequently cited in later disputes regarding membership in casate was the law of ι February 1497; see ASF, Tratte, F 1167, 391 fif. Thus in ASF, Tratte, r 1101, "Registro legale ossie repertorio di massime relative alle tratte ed a tutti gli uffizi," 8, "il Be­ nefizio de Seduti e veduti a uno de tre maggiori si riconosca da Padre, Auolo ο Bisauolo." 12

Among old casate from which new casate broke off were the Tornaquinci, declared

magnati in 1293. The house of the Popoleschi was declared distinct from the Tornaquinci in 1364, the Giachinotti in 1380, the Mirabottmi in 1386, and the Tornabuoni in 1393; see

PART I

Tratte among casate with similar surnames. A family connection was valuable and the use of surnames was defended with care. Legislation prohibiting fraudulent claims of family affiliation later became a source of litigation, as established houses attempted to prevent newcomers to the city or distant poor kinsmen from entering the scrutinies through the use of their names.13 The continuity of casate is clear from the prioriste, which also make it possible to estimate the size and composition of the fifteenth-century officeholding group. The surnames of nearly a thousand casate appear among men who were selected as priors during the fifteenth century. The eight priors, forty-eight in a year, were selected every two months, and at each selection included six men from the major and two from the minor guilds. The most complete list of Republican priors is the priorista compiled from different sources by Abate Lorenzo Mariani in the early eighteenth century.14 Selection was made from Mariani's list of the 426 casate appearing as priors four times or more between 1400 and 1494. This group has been taken as representative of the fifteenth-cen­ tury elite.15 Pampalom, "I Tornaquinci, poi Tornabuom," 331-62. Of these, the Popoleschi, extinct in 1778, survived into the eighteenth century, as did the original house of Tornaquinci whose fortunes revived at the Medici Court in the seventeenth century; see ASF, Deputazione sopra la nobilta Toscana, F 10, ins. 18; F 11, ins. 11. IJ The law of 1 February 1497, cited in note 11, directed against "tutti quelli cittadini i quali furono imborsati nella borsa del Consigho Maggiore di gennaio ο febbraio 1494 . . . e non havevano il benefizio de seduti a tre maggiori nella Ioro consortena ο famiglia." It was cited in a case of the Calderini in 1561 against a provincial family falsely claiming to be Caldenni in 1561; see ASF, Consulta, F 22, 26if. For similar cases of the Cambi in 1582, see ibid., 285^, Donati in 159s; Consulta, F 23, 13f., and Brumin 1604, ibid., 24f. 14 ASF, Manoscntti, ff 248-53. " Distinctions of casate are those of Mariam. His grouping of priors is not a grouping of persons with the same surnames, but of persons with distinct lineages. Thus, for in­ stance, there were three distinct casate of Ridolfi, the "Ridolfi del Ponte" (Mariam, 164), first priors in 1287 and extinct in 1758, the "Ridolfi di Borgo" (Mariam, 208) first priors in 1290 and extinct in 1654; and the "Ridolfi di Piazza" (Manani, 535), first priors in 1321, the line that continued through the eighteenth century and still exists. The casate derived from Mariam are more numerous than those contained in a list of 325 casate from the scrutiny for the tre maggiori of 1433 published by D. Kent, "The Florentine Reggimento," 575-638, although most of the same names appear m both, and the characteristics of the group in 143 3 are very similar to the one used here. Partly because of the varying number of lines of casate there was wide range in the number of priors per house; the 25 percent

LEGACY OF THE RENAISSANCE REPUBLIC TABLE I.I FIFTEENTH-CENTURY PRIORS

Date

Before 1300

Priors Four Times or More

Highest 8%

Hundred Wealthiest Households

70 (16)

54 (27)

(38)

1300-49

93 (22)

50 (25)

15 (28)

1350-99

153 (36)

58 (29)

(12) (22)

1400-49

96 (23)

33 (17}

5 (9)

1450-94

14 (3)

5 (3)

(2)

426 (100)

200 ¢47)

54 (Π)

TOTAL (N) TOTAL ( % )

21

I

NOTES Distribution by date of entry into the pnorate of Casate that were

priors four times or more between 1400 and 1494; with households in the highest 8 percent of wealth in the Catasto of 1427, and with house­ holds among the 100 wealthiest in 1427 Numbers in parentheses are percent­ ages

These names indicate that the families who ruled fifteenth-century Florence varied considerably in length of establishment in the priorate and, when their names are compared with the tax assessments from the 1427 Catasto, in wealth; but old habilitation for office and a degree of wealth were both important for success (Table 1.1). There were some exceptions, however. One notes the absence from the priorate of feudal nobles like the Barbolani di Montauto, Bourbon del Monte, Gherardesca, Ubertini, or Malaspina, who never entered the councils of the Republic, as well as of such older families like the Broccardi, Gherardini, Franzesi, or Ubaldini, whose fiefs had been absorbed by the Re­ public, although the families were still excluded from the scrutinies as magnati. Some older popolani such as the Cerchi, Mozzi, and Tornaquinci, who had been barred from offices for various reasons, are also missing.16 The electoral procedures of the Republic discriminated of houses with twelve priors or more accounted for more than half of the offices occupied by the whole group during the century. 16 The Cerchi (Mariani, 564) first appeared as priors three times in the thirteenth cen­ tury and once thereafter, in 1480; the Mozzi (Mariani, 139) appeared five times in the

PART I

among houses, but old establishment was still important. Of the 426 casate appearing four times or more during the fifteenth century, 316 (three-fourths) had first appeared as priors before 1400; 163 (more than a third) before 1350; and 70 before 1300. These families entered the rul­ ing group at the time of the city's early expansion, before its population growth was checked in the mid-fourteenth century. They included such names as Acciaiuoli, De Ricci, Guicciardini, Delia Stufa, and Ginori, all of whom had appeared as priors before 1350. To be sure, a large number of houses had first appeared in office at the end of the fourteenth century. But by the mid-fifteenth century, newcomers such as the Corsi, Niccolini, Nasi, Morelli, and Serristori were beginning to be thought of as older houses and no longer the gente nuova they had been three generations earlier. Many fewer newcomers had made their first appearance among the priors after 1400—49 between 1400 and 1433, and 56 between 1434 and 1494. Three to four generations of habilitation for the Maggiori was typical of the political group. Old establishment in the city was one characteristic of the elite; wealth was another. The great survey of wealth of fifteenth-century Florentines was the Catasto of 1427, from which assessments were re­ newed periodically until 1480. This has been prepared for reference and analysis by D. Herlihy and others. 17 Using their transcription, it is pos­ sible to check the names of casate appearing more frequently as priors against the households with the greatest assessed wealth in 1427 and 1428. The distribution of wealth in fifteenth-century Florence had the shape of a long reclining "L": a very small number of households with considerable or comfortable fortunes, and a very large number with very small or no means. According to this ranking, out of the 8,300 or more households that were taxed, 686 had assessments among the fourteenth century, beginning in 1334, and twice at the beginning of the sixteenth cen­ tury, but never in the fifteenth century; and the original Tornaquinci appeared four times in the thirteenth century (Mariani, 119). Other families of magnati of which secondary, but not primary, branches appeared occasionally as priors include the Bardi, counts of Vernio (Mariani, 1, 4) and Ricasoli—not the Ricasoli Baroni, but a related though distinct house (Mariani, 1440). 17

1 am grateful to Professor David Herlihy for providing me with an alphabetical

printout of households listed with family names in the 1427 Catasto, and for other pre­ liminary information concerning his ranking of households by wealth on which the fol­ lowing observations are based. For further discussion, see Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs families, 241-60.

LEGACY OF THE RENAISSANCE REPUBLIC

highest eight percent with 3,200 Florins or more, while the median wealth of all taxed households was only 325 Florins. The hundred households (one percent) with the greatest wealth each had assets of 13,000 Florins or more. It is not possible to locate all of the casate ap­ pearing frequently as priors in the Catasto returns of 1427-28, since some families were probably absent from the city during those years or did not yet appear in the tax books with the surnames they would later adopt. Some linkages are tentative because of the difficulty of distin­ guishing precisely among casate with similar surnames. Of the 340 ca­ sate that can be located, 204 (more than half) were in the wealthiest 8 percent in 1427, and 54 (seventy-five households) were in the wealthiest one percent. Wealth was well represented in the highest offices. Al­ though households belonging to casate that appeared frequently in the priorate amounted to only about 25 percent of the households assessed in the Catasto, they were more than twice as likely to be among the wealthy and nearly four times as likely to be among the very wealthy than assessed households with no kin in the officeholding group. Among the very rich were houses with surnames of continuing im­ portance in Florentine history. Six of the one hundred wealthiest fam­ ilies were in the quarter of Santa Maria Novella: two branches of Ardinghelli, with a total of ten households in the Catasto and four priors during the century; one Compagni (six households, twelve priors); one Gianfigliazzi (fourteen households, eight priors); one Delia Luna (three households, five priors); one Strozzi (forty-nine households, twentyseven priors); and one Tornaquinci (one household, eight priors). No fewer than fifty-four households of Strozzi were listed separately in the Catasto, with the forty-nine households in Santa Maria Novella rang­ ing in wealth from the 162,906 Florins of Palla di Nofri Strozzi, the richest man in the quarter and in the entire city, to the 71 Florins of Mea di Nanni Strozzi, a widow living alone with two children. Fifteen of the wealthiest households were in the San Giovanni quarter. These in­ cluded one Albizzi with thirty-four households and twenty-nine priors; one Alessandri (three households, fourteen priors); three Medici (twenty-nine households, sixteen priors); three Pazzi (eight house­ holds, eight priors); one De Ricci (five households, five priors); one Rinieri (three households, four priors); and Valori (three households, five priors). In the Santa Croce quarter were the Alberti (sixteen house­ holds, eleven priors); Giugni (four households, six priors); Sacchetti

PAKT I

(five households, nineteen priors); and Zati (five households, twelve priors). The concentration of wealth was greatest in the San Giovanni and Santa Croce quarters, but also in the Santo Spirito quarter south of the Arno, where streets such as Borgo Santo Spirito, Borgo S. Jacopo, Via Maggio, and Via Guicciardini were crowded with patrician palaces. Here, the wealthy members of the elite included the Bini (three households, eight priors); Bonsi (two households, fifteen priors); Manetti (five households, eight priors); Ridolfi (seventeen households, twenty-five priors); Serragli (fourteen households, thirteen priors); and Soderini (five households, thirteen priors). These houses set the tone of Florentine society in the last period of the Republic. Secure in their political influence, they had begun to depend for their status less on a large following of kinsmen and supporters than on outward signs of display, and their opulence was increasing. The more severe thirteenth- and fourteenth-century palaces in which several related households had lived together were being redecorated or rebuilt in the new classical style to serve the needs of a single family rather than of a larger group. 18 The palace built in the 1420s by the architect Bicci di Lorenzo in Via De Bardi for Niccolo' Da Uzzano, a prominent member of the ruling group during the early years of the century, was one of these new constructions. Other palaces followed: by Michelozzi for Cosimo De Medici (1425), by Rossellino for the Rucellai (1446-51); and by other architects for Filippo Strozzi (from 1489). These buildings were an indication of distinct social standing and were a preview of further building by patricians in the following centuries: the palaces designed by Ammannati and Buontalenti in the sixteenth century, and those in the seventeenth century by the Silvani and by the Roman architect Fontana.' 9 The fifteenth-century palaces were usually built for one household and its servants and retainers. When brothers married they were likely to arrange separate establishments. Marriages were contracted with the diplomatic care of political alliances, and dowries befitted rank and re,8

Note the discussion in Goldthwaite, Private Wealth, 251-75 et passim, and also his "The Florentine Palace," 977-1012. " On the Strozzi palace and patrician building practices in the fifteenth century, see Goldthwaite, "The Building of the Strozzi Palace," 99-194. On the sixteenth century, see Spini, "Architettura e politica," 792-845. 22

LEGACY OF THE RENAISSANCE REPUBLIC

fleeted family standing. 20 Furniture, plate, and trappings were com­ missioned and displayed, and entertainment was offered. Family stand­ ing was further flaunted

in the city's churches and monasteries, where

the patricians served as Operai and had their burial places. Their charity to churches beyond the city walls gave them patronage in appoint­ ments to rural benefices. The patricians were at the center of Florentine economic life and controlled huge financial resources. Their merchant companies and wool and silk shops employed scores of artisans and ad­ vanced aspiring clerks and managers into a business world that ex­ tended from Antwerp to Rome and beyond, and their commercial prof­ its filled the coffers of the Republican treasury. 21 Under guidance of the Medici, these families secured the stability of the fifteenth-century government. They forecast the drawings of officeholders and placed relatives and clients into lesser offices of the chanceries of the magistra­ cies, into offices as notai who accompanied Florentine justices to the subject towns of the Dominion, or as secretaries to patrician ambassa­ dors abroad. They provided patronage for humanists and scholars, and their conversations could turn from business and politics to ancient lit­ erature and history. 22 Beyond the city walls, the clusters of farms that their prudent reinvestment of profits had gradually enlarged extended the patricians' interests well into the surrounding countryside. 23 The extent to which the elite was resented by humbler Florentines, who might have preferred a broader-based and more popular govern­ ment, is sometimes revealed in the debates of the fifteenth-century councils. Resentment culminated in a revolt against the Medici and against oligarchic rule in 1494. 24 The Savonarolian Republic developed as a reaction against the patrician Ottimati, a reaction that reemerged in 1527. But the patricians' deep roots in the city sustained them through such temporary reversals. 20

On patrician marriages, see Klapisch, "Parenti, amici e vicmi," 953-82; Cohn, The

Laboring Classes, 43-63. 21 On the economy of Florence in the fifteenth century, see Fiumi, "Fiontura e decadenza"; de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank. 22

Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 263-303 et passim.

21

Note the discussions in Jones, "Florentine Families and Florentine Diaries," 183-

205; Fiumi, "Fioritura e decadenza"; and Goldthwaite, Private Wealth. 24

Rubinstein, Government of Florence, 136-73; idem, "I primi anm del consiglio mag-

giore."

ADAPTATION TO THE SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTHCENTURY MEDICI COURT

Some fifteenth-century houses disappeared from Florence in the crisis that marked the end of the Republic. The fortunes of others were re­ versed in the establishment of the Duchy, and many died out or disap­ peared from the city. Also, newcomers rose to prominence at the ducal Court in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and feudal nobles and houses branded as magnati, which the Republic had kept at a distance, returned to influence. Yet many houses of the fifteenth-century elite endured through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and trans­ formed themselves into nobles of the Medici Court. Their survival owed much to the politics of the Medici during the wars that began with the French invasion of Italy in 1494 and ended with the collapse of the Florentine Republic in 1530. Successively exiled, recalled, and again exiled, the Medici were able to preserve their influence partly through the patronage of two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. 1 Patrician Ottimati in the Medici faction identified Florentine liberties with the Medici ascendancy and promoted a new arrangement of the constitution. The outcome was the establishment of Alessandro De Medici as ruler in 1530 and the new constitutional settlement of 1532, which changed the Republic into a hereditary Duchy. The assembly that changed the constitution was filled with families with office before 1494. 2 In a difficult political and diplomatic situa­ tion, this attempted to create a mixed constitution that would complete the fifteenth-century trend of restricting political influence to a select ' On the crisis of the Republic, see Stephens, The Fall of the Florentine Republic On re­ lationships between Florence and Rome, see Bullard, Filippo Strozzi and the Medici. 2

Names of the riformatori and members of the Balia are in Cantini, Legislazione To-

scana,

1, 5—17.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

group.3 A new executive body, the Magistrato Supremo, replaced the priors and Gonfaloniere di Giustizia of the Signoria, and two coun­ cils—the 48 or Senate and the Council of 200—replaced the more egal­ itarian Consiglio Maggiore of 1494 that had been revived in 1527. The duke was to share power with the Magistrato Supremo. The initial Senate was made up of the select group of riformatori who wrote the constitution, while the remainder of the Balia became the Council of 200. The members of both councils held office for life. Their successors were appointed by the dukes, the 200 from among citizens made eligi­ ble through the scrutinies for the magistracies, and the Senate in turn from the 200.4 The reform also changed the method of selecting citizens for offices in the magistracies. This, at first appearance, might seem to have en­ larged the officeholding group, since in 1532 the last vestiges of guild membership disappeared from the regulations of the Tratta, and new­ comers admitted to the scrutinies since 1494 retained their rights.s Yet access to offices under the Duchy was as carefully regulated as it had been under the Republic. The benefiziati for the Maggiori of the Re­ public became benefiziati for the magistracies of the Duchy, and impor­ tant offices in the magistracies were reserved for members of the Senate and Council of 200. The houses of 90 percent of the 261 men who were made senators between 1532 and 1604 were among the group fre­ quently priors in the fifteenth century, as were 57 percent of the houses of the 1,204 men appointed to the Council of 200.6 The sixteenth-century dukes respected the new constitutional settle­ ment to the extent that it restricted access to office to a limited group. Relatively few newcomers were made eligible for offices in the 1540s and 1550s. Yet as the Medici established their authority, the political in3

On the political circumstances of the establishment of the principate, see von Alber-

tini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato, 179-279. 4

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, 1, 5-17. The constitution envisioned in 1532 is de­

scribed in Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 25-40. 5

On the change in the guild requirements, see Doren, Le Arti Florentine, n, 294-95;

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, 1, 5-17. 6

For the names of senators in the sixteenth century, see Mecatti, Storia genealogica,

125-34. Fo r members of the Council of 200 before 1604, see ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 53-86, "Consiglio de Dugento . . . et Ie casate della citta di Firenze col numero notato da banda di quante persone hanno havuto detto consiglio.

. ."

PART I

fluence of the patricians inevitably decreased. Before 1494 the Medici had accepted a relative parity with other Florentine houses, but in the sixteenth century the situation truly changed. The new reality began to emerge in the 1540s and 1550s under Cosimo I De Medici, who was made duke by the Senate in 1537 after the murder of the first duke, Alessandro.7 The prospect of continued Spanish occupation after the defeat in 1530 helped to resign the city to more authoritarian rule. It was not until the conclusion of the War of Siena and Philip II's investi­ ture of Cosimo with Siena in 1557 that the independence of the new regime seemed secure. To secure his control, the duke depended on men in the Medici fac­ tion who were loyal to him, and on the commanders of troops in the Bande who had served him at the moment of his accession and later during the Sienese War. At Montemurlo in 1537 the faction of fuorusciti who opposed the new settlement was defeated. Yet the threat of con­ spiracy still seemed sufficiently great ten years later for the enactment of a law against rebels, the Legge Polverina of 1547, which imposed harsh penalties for crimes of Iesa maesta against the ducal house. Con­ demnations of rebels continued in the following decades. The last plot against the Medici, staged by Roberto Pucci and his followers, was di­ rected against Cosimo and his son Francesco in 1572.8 Florence began to have two governments, one composed of the intimates and agents of the duke, and the other composed of the councils and magistracies sanctioned by the Reform of 1532. During his first years, Cosimo lived in the Palazzo Medici, where the first duke had lived before him. He then transferred his residence to the Palazzo della Signoria, the old rooms of the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia and priors. In 1549 he acquired the palace of the Pitti family south of the Arno. It was enlarged and later connected by an enclosed gallery across the Arno to the new structure of the Uffizi, which was begun in 1560 to house the new bureaucracy, and to the Palazzo della Signoria, which now assumed the name Pa­ lazzo Vecchio. The Palazzo Pitti became the center of the Medici Court, and lists of 7

On the politics of the first years of Cosimo, see Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al

principato, 280-305; Spini, Cosimo De Medici. 8

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, 11, 54-75. Note the lists of "Cittadini admomti, ban-

diti, confinati e nbelli," in ASF, Tratte, FF 1026, 1027. Most recently on the Pucci con­ spiracy, see Berner, "Florentine Society," 203-46.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

the duke's salariati begin to include the names of some of the Court functionaries. In 1543 men paid by Cosimo were commanders of troops in the Bande, and served as functionaries in the permanent staff of the magistracies and as diplomatic agents abroad. They were cer­ tainly only a small part of the Court retinue, including three secretaries, Pierfrancesco Ricci, Cristofano Pagni, and Niccolo Campana, and Luigi Ridolfi "Gentiluomo di Sua Eccelenza," and Capitano Lione Da Carpi "Cameriere." 9 The list for 1550 included ten secretaries; twelve Coppieri, Scalchi, and Camerieri of the chamber and table; and twenty-five others, including Marzio Marzi, the bishop of Assisi; a physician; Gentlemen of the Stables; eleven Damigelli of the duchess; and two artists, Benvenuto Cellini and Agnolo di Cosimo (Bronzino). A large number of lesser men and servants brought the size of the duke's household to about 280. IO The Court preserved essentially this staff during the remaining years of Cosimo, but then grew consider­ ably in size under his two successors, Francesco I in 1574 and Ferdinando I in 1587. It became still larger at the beginning of the seven­ teenth century under Cosimo II, who succeeded in 1609, and Ferdinando II in 1621. In 1588, at the beginning of the reign of Ferdinando I, there were thirteen secretaries; eighteen Camerieri, Scalchi, Coppieri, and Gentiluomini; and sixty-four others who were impor­ tant enough to be provided with horses by the duke. If one includes art­ ists, musicians, lackeys, servants, gardeners, cooks in two kitchens, grooms, and beaters who followed the hunt, the household of Ferdinando I numbered some four hundred. 11 Places of honor at the Medici Court assumed great importance, and at first the Gentiluomini, Camerieri, Scalchi, and Scudieri were chiefly commanders of troops in the Bande, feudal nobles from the periphery of the Florentine Dominion, and foreigners. The establishment of the new regime marked a definite change of tone. The Court imposed a military and feudal faqade upon the city. Cosimo's associates included men such as Ridolfo Baglioni and Sforza Almeni, exiles from Perugia after its conquest by Pope Paul III in 1540; Luigi Dovara, a noble of Cremona; and Antonio da Aldana, Fabio Mandragone, and Antonio 0 ASF, Manoscritti, F 321, "Cariche d'onore concesse da S. Ser/ GG. Duchi, Tomo secondo che contiene gh arruolati della corte," 17F. 10 Ibid., 43f.; D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 379, n. 15. " ASF, Depositeria, F 389, "Libro di provvisionati, 1588-1614."

PART I

Ramirez da Montalvo, Spanish noblemen uprooted in the Italian wars who found a livelihood in the service of the rising Medici. 12 The Court was clearly of importance in the control of the Florentine Dominion. The Republic had never entirely reduced to submission the more distant towns of its region, which at the moment of Cosimo's accession were embroiled in the turmoil that had developed since 1494. In addition, Florentine territory was bounded by feudal enclaves, which were troublesome to security and order, and after the War of Siena the duke was obliged to control the partly independent lords in the State of Siena. An accomplishment of the dukes was the formation of more regular control over this outlying region, but in the first period of the Duchy this relationship was exercised more in a military and per­ sonal manner than in an institutional and administrative one. Cosimo's policy required contingents of troops, personal visitations, and the ability to bind feudal nobles and the prominent families of towns in the Distretto to the Court in Florence through bonds of obligation, honor, and service. The War of Siena had barely ended when the duke granted citizenship and the right to enter scrutinies for Florentine offices to fifty-one families in thirteen different towns of the Dominion. 13 Feudal nobles from the periphery of the state appeared regularly on the Court rolls: the Malaspina, lords in Lunigiana north of Pisa; the Bourbon Del Monte, Marchesi of Monte Santa Maria along the eastern border with the Papal States; the Bardi, since 1332 the counts of Vernio in the Tus­ can Romagna to the northeast; and the Ricasoli, once magnati and lords of Broglio, whose ancient barony at Trappola and Rocca Guicciarda, near the border with Siena, which had been confiscated by the Repub­ lic, was restored in 1564. Cosimo also granted fiefs to men among commanders of his troops: to the Musefili at Sassetta in the Maremma of Pisa in 1543; to the Vitelli at Cetona near the eastern boundary of Siena, and to the Ascani at Rocca Albegna in the Maremma. 14 At the Court the remaining feudal nobles of the Dominion, which the Repub12 On members of the Court, see Astur, I Baglioni, 393-405; Pincenardi, "Luigi Dovara," 49-129; Winspeare, Isabella Orsini. 13 Their descendants continued to be admitted to the Florentine scrutinies into the eighteenth century; see Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 64-65; ASF, Tratte, F 545, "Squittinio generale dell' anno 1734." 14 On the sixteenth century fiefs in general, see Fasano Guarini, Lo stato Mediceo di Co-

simo I, 63-73.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

lie had kept at a distance, reappeared in a new situation of prominence, and the thirteenth-century prohibition barring families of magnati from office in the magistracies of Florence was finally withdrawn through a decree of Cosimo II in 1622. 15 Thus the Court provided a political and ceremonial focus for the Duchy. Both the patricians and foreign ambassadors watched arrivals and departures from the Palazzo Pitti with apprehension, and the eti­ quette of the ducal household and cavalieresque spectacles imitated those of Madrid or Paris. Cosimo himself lived without conspicuous ceremony, maintaining a private table and a familiar demeanor toward the city, but still he made a show of grandeur. In 1570 he was crowned in Rome by Pius V as Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his burial in 1574 was a spectacle copied from the funeral of Charles V. 16 The Order of St. Stephen, which he founded in 1562, also helped to legitimate the new regime. This was similar to the Order of St. John of Malta, with a fleet of galleys intended to protect the Tuscan coasts fromTurkish in­ cursions. 17 The imposing residence was at Pisa, but admission to the Order and to the ducal Commende, benefices that supported knights, were clearly honors of the Court in Florence. Like Knights of Malta, the Knights of St. Stephen were nobles, and the proofs for admission to the Order required sixteen quarterings of noble lineage. However, non-nobles could be ennobled by the dukes, or they could purchase ad­ mission to the Order through the foundation of a Commenda. The Or­ der of St. Stephen thus became a step in the social ascent of new men. The first knights were selected among younger branches of the Medici house and among nobles of the ducal Court, but knights were recruited broadly. Sons of established families in the provincial towns of Tuscany became Knights of St. Stephen. Important provincial names such as Piccolomini of Siena, Lanfranchi of Pisa, Sozzifanti ofPistoia, Incontri and Inghirami of Volterra, Albergotti of Arezzo, and Passerini of Cortona appeared for generations as commanders of the ducal fleet.18 " The law of 1622 is printed in Neri, "Sopra Io stato antico e moderno," 598-99. " On the very important symbolic aspects of this ceremony, see Borstook, "Art and Politics at the Medici Court," 31-54. 17

For the statutes of the Order and its internal organization, see Guarnieri, L'Ordine di

Santo Stefano, 1, H 4 f . " Between 1562 and 1600, seventy-three Kmghts of St. Stephen were recruited from Siena, thirty-six from Pisa, thirty-six from Pistoia, thirty-one from Volterra, twenty-

PART I

In these ways, the first dukes tested the adaptive abilities of the Flor­ entine patricians, a challenge that not all houses among the priors of the fifteenth-century were able to meet. Some houses had identified their fortunes with the Medici before 1530, and thus anticipated the Court before its creation, but others had not. Still, most of the inner group of houses from the fifteenth-century priorate survived the transition to the Duchy. Genealogies are not always trustworthy, and it is difficult to trace the continuity of houses in every case with absolute confidence. Yet by comparing the names of casate prominent as priors in the fif­ teenth century with names of casate considered able to hold office in 1551 and 1604, members of the Council of 200, and senators, it is pos­ sible to make an approximate accounting of houses that were still pres­ ent in the mid-to-late sixteenth century.19 Of the 426 casate who were frequently priors in the fifteenth century, 273 were represented at one time or another in the Council of 200 or the Senate before 1604, and 99 others, although never appointed to the Council of 200, appear in lists of casate di Firenze eligible for offices. Fifty-four houses cannot be traced, eleven are known to have died out before the mid-sixteenth cen­ tury, and twenty had not appeared as priors between 1485 and 1530, which suggests that they too may have disappeared from the city.20 The 372 houses that can be traced to the sixteenth-century councils or lists of citizens include most of the fifteenth-century houses that had ap­ peared in the priorate before 1350 and almost all of those with the high­ est assessed wealth in the Catasto of 1427. Houses of old establishment, greater wealth, and relatively more representation in the priorate were well represented. Now, confronted with the ducal Court, they began to transform themselves from citizens into nobles able to exercise influ­ ence at a new level of importance. The transformation of citizens into nobles was not an entirely new development in sixteenth-century Italy. It had progressed from the three from Arezzo, and nine from Cortona; see Guarnien, "Elenchi di Cavalieri appartenenti all' Ordine con riferimenti cronologici, di patria, di titoli, di vestizione d'abito, 1562-1859," in L'Ordine di Santo Stefino, iv. " Thelists of casate and casate di Firenze in BNF, Manoscntti Palatino, 756; D'Addario, "Burocrazia"; and ASF, Manoscritti,

F

223, 53-68, are casate with the benefizio of the

scrutinies. 20

Notices of extinction of families from ASF, Manoscritti,

Mariani.

FF

248-53, Priorista

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

time of the communes, with their mixture of feudal and mercantile ele­ ments; but the change became more pronounced in the sixteenth cen­ tury when the new involvement of France and the Spanish Hapsburgs in the politics of Italy, gave the status of personal nobility a heightened significance. The change had more political than economic impor­ tance. Landholders and merchants were intertwined in Florence from the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries. Still, it is clear that the transformation was furthered by the long economic recession of the seventeenth century, when social stratification became more rigid, call­ ing for new justifications of inherited wealth and standing. Titles and lineages were of most importance at princely courts, but the citizen elites of republics also sought new justifications for the exaltation of standing. The patricians of Venice and Lucca had begun to call them­ selves nobles before the sixteenth century, while at Milan this tendency advanced under the Sforza dukes and was completed under the Spanish viceroys. The Florentine Republic had not given its citizens a legal status of no­ bility, for although magnati were sometimes employed as commanders of troops or fortresses or as ambassadors abroad, nobles were politi­ cally suspect. 21 Fifteenth-century humanists generally used the term "noble" in a general, moralized sense. As evidence of the city's worth, they praised the nobility of Florence as a city and the accomplishments of individual Florentines in the arts and letters, in their piety, skill as orators, knowledge of law, or prominence in politics.22 Ingenious Latin poems set forth the antiquity of family origins, but in the civic concep­ tion, "nobility," as applied to citizens, seems to have been thought of more as individual virtue and valor than as the dominion over land and subjects that marked "nobility" in a feudal sense. 23 There are many sixteenth-century Italian treatises that discuss the nature of nobility, manners, and Court etiquette, and some of these treatises were written by Florentines. The Medici court became one of the testing grounds for the new style of honor. Nobility began to be thought of as an inherited quality, and families long eligible for the highest offices of the Republic began to call themselves nobles as a " On the decline of knighthood as an honor of the Republic, see Salvemini, La dignita cavalleresca. " Vallone, "II concetto di nobilta e cortesia," 8-20. 23 Thus in Verino, De illustratione urbis Florentiae.

PART I

group. This title appeared in the sixteenth century and persisted through the eighteenth. Prominent Florentines had long shown an in­ terest in their family origins, but now their interest grew, and geneal­ ogies and family histories traced distant ancestors with fantastic elab­ oration to the Court of Charlemagne, or to ancient Rome or Egypt. The new literature began to appear in the 1570s.24 Within a generation, Francesco De Vieri wrote his Primo libro della nobilta (1572), and Lo­ renzo Giacomini presented his treatise Della nobilta delle lettere e delle armi (1576) to the Accademia Fiorentina. A heraldic treatise of Vincenzo Borghini, Delle armi delle famiglie fiorentine, was published in 1585, followed by Paolo Mini's Discorso della nobilta di Firenze e deifiorentini, which was dedicated to Niccolo Capponi, "Gentiluomo Fiorentino," in 1593. Scipione Ammirato, the Court historian of Ferdinando I, displayed the family trees of prominent Republican houses alongside those of feudal nobles of the Medici Court in a collection of genealogies, Delle famiglie nobili fiorentine, that was published in 1615.25 The seventeenth-century genealogical works culminated with the monumental work of Eugenio Gamurrini, Istoriagenealogica delle fami­ glie nobili Toscane et Umbre, which was published in four volumes be­ tween 1668 and 1673.26 In these works, to have had ancestors among priors of the Republic became a matter of first importance, and gave rise to the compilation of new family prioriste, one of the last and most elaborate of which was compiled by the Abate Mariani for the use of the Medici Court in the 1720s. The claims of Florentine citizens to be considered of equal rank with feudal nobles was expressed succinctly in Scipione Ammirato's work of 1615: How mistaken are those who distinguish between the nobility of a gentleman born in a Kingdom or other Principate and that of a Republic. . . . Nobility consists of antiquity and splendor . . . and it is easier for those of a Republic than for others to demonstrate the span of their continuous succession, since they are assisted by such documents as the Florentine priorists. . . .lfonelooks well at great Republics, as was that of Florence, it will be seen that its noble 24

On this literature, see Diaz, "L'idea di una nuova 'Elite,' " 572-87.

25

De Vieri, Primo libro della nobilta; Giacomini-Tebalducci, Delia nobilta delle lettere e

delle armi; Mini, Discorso della nobilta; ASF, Manoscritti,

F

425, Monaldi, "Istoria delle

famiglie fiorentine" (1607); Ammirato, Delle famiglie nobili fiorentim di Scipione Ammirato. 26

Gamurrini, Istoria genealogica.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

families had no reason to compare themselves slightingly to [seigneurs, barons, counts, marquises, and the like]. . . for although they had no Seigneuries, and have not lived in quite such a cavalieresque manner as is usual in the Court of a king or a great prince (for public order under the Republic would not permit such inequalities of titles or manners of living), yet they have been Gonfalonieri di Giustizia, Priori, Commissari of the Ten of War, in the Balie, and other sim­ ilar positions hardly inferior to seigneurs with authority over non-noble per­ sons." 27 But in practice the new style of the patricians had begun to emerge well before the publication of these works. Assertion of noble status might require some document or patent, and patents in the form of at­ testations of nobility were granted by the dukes, in some instances when Florentines were sent as ambassadors abroad. 28 From the Foun­ dation of the Order of St. Stephen in 1562, the dukes had recognized as "noble" the intermarriages of families who had occupied high offices of the Republic as proof of nobility for admission to the Order. Ulti­ mately it became a short step from a few houses in the Medici faction of the elite to citizens with the benefizio of the scrutinies for offices gen­ erally. Gradually families of even modest means began to display coats of arms and referred to themselves as "noble citizens" or "noble patri­ cians" in their marriage contracts and wills. Among the Ginori, Gino di Agnolo Ginori, "Cittadino Fiorentino," married in 1583, while his son Agnolo di Gino was described as "Nobile Fiorentino" upon his marriage in 1618. Among the Altoviti, Guglielmo di Francesco Altoviti was described as a "Cittadino Fiorentino" on his marriage in 1594, while his son was a "Nobile Fiorentino" upon his marriage in 1627. Among the Pepi, a more modest family, Ruberto di Ruberto Pepi, "Cittadino Fiorentino," married in 1608, while his son Francesco who married in 1649 had also become "nobile." 29 Old admission to the 27

Ammirato, Delle famtglie nobilifiorentine di Scipione Ammirato, "A lettori."

28

The patents were registered in the Libri di Privilegi of the Pratica Segreta; there were

relatively few in the 1530s to 1550s, but thirty or more in the 1560s and 1570s. These included attestations of nobility for the Antinori, Gondi, Pazzi, Ridolfi, Strozzi, and Soderini. See ASF, Pratica Segreta. ten patents in the years 1539-61 (F I86), twenty-three in 1561-70 (F 187), thirteen in 1571-82 (F 188), and eleven in 1582-94 (F 189). 19

Summaries of marriage contracts from the Provvanze di Nobilta of the Deputazione

created in 1750; see Ginori, ASF, Deputazione Nobilta, F 14, ins. 4; Altoviti, F 8, ins. 3; Pepi, F 7, ins. 2.

PART I

priorate acquired a special significance. Newcomers to the city, even newcomers who enjoyed the honors of the Court, attempted to prove that they were the long-lost descendants of ancient houses that were long extinct.30 In counterattack, houses of the elite attempted to protect themselves against false use of their names. Thus the Calderini brought suit in 1561 against "Gio Antonio and Silvestro, brothers and sons of Ser Lorenzo di Biagio dijacopo di Calderino di Antonio from Figline (or rather Castelfranco) [who have usurped] the name, family and casata of the true and noble Calderini of the city of Florence." There were similar cases involving the Cambi in 1582, the Donati in 1595, and the Bruniin 1604.31 The growing sensitivity to social standing is an indication of the adaptation of the patricians to the ducal Court. One can trace the external signs of their progress in the Senate, in the Order of St. Stephen, and in the acquisition of fiefs and titles (Table 2.1). Patricians appeared consistently as senators of Florence, gradually appeared in the lists ofsalariati of the Court, and then acquired fiefs or titles in the Order of St. Stephen. In 1550 Count Pandolfo De Bardi was among the Gentiluomini di Camera, but the Bardi with their fourteenth-century fief at Vernio were considered magnati and had not held office in the fifteenth century.32 None of the other gentlemen of the chamber or table of Cosimo I in 1550 can be identified in the inner group of fifteenth-century priors, and there were none in the duke's close household in 1560.33 But patrician names appeared on the Court rolls with greater frequency under Francesco I and Ferdinando I in the 1580s and 1590s; and under Cosimo II and Ferdinando II in the 1610s to 1650s, they figure quite conspicuously. In 1621, during the first year of the Regency for Ferdinando II when the Court reached its largest size in the seventeenth century, Pi30

Among false attestations of the antiquity of families, the Usimbardi, newcomers from Colle and favorites of Ferdinando I in the 1590s, who became extinct in the 1740s, associated themselves falsely with the ancient Florentine Usimbardi, who were long extinct; see ASF, Carte Sebngondi, No. 5359. The Donnini, Court functionaries of Ferdinando II m the 1640s who were ultimately registered as nobles in 1763, did the same with the ancient house of Donnini, which had become extinct in the fifteenth century; ASF, Carte Sebngondi, No. 1969. " ASF, Consulta, F 22, 261, 285; F 23, 13, 24. 32 The Bardi in the priorate were of a different casata. " ASF, Manoscritti, F 321, 3off., 7iff.

34

A D A P T A T I O N TO M E D I C I C O U R T TABLE

2.1

T H E E N N O B L I N G OF F I F T E E N T H - C E N T U R Y

FLORENTINE

HOUSES

1500-1750 1550

1600

1650

1700

1750

Uncertain

Total

%A

% B

Date

A. Houses frequently priors in the fifteenth century

426

B. Surviving in the sixteenth century Senators*

32

21

19

Order of St. Stephen* Fief, title

90

37 11

21

6

5 8 3

Extinct

36

44

68

19

47

372

(87)

124

(29)

(33)

156

(42) (9)

12

33

(37) (8)

79

246

(58)

(66)

Surviving at time of Manani

150

(35)

(40)

In eighteenthcentury Libri di Oro

133

(31)

(35)

i n d i c a t e s first appearance only NOTES: Percentage surviving at the time of Manani in the 1702s w h o had had senators, 6 2 % ; Knights o f St. Stephen, 7 6 % fiefs or titles, 2 0 %

Percentage with no senators, Knights o f St. Stephen, fiefs or

titles, 1 9 % . Numbers in parantheses are percentages

ero Guicciardini and Francesco Dell' Antella were the Maggiordomo Maggiore and Maggiordomo, and among the names of Gentlemen of the Chamber were Giugni, Niccolini, De Nobili, Dell' Antella, Gianfigliazzi, Alamanni, Delia Stufa, Sacchetti, and Rinaldi. In 1652 there were three patricians among the eight Maggiordomi and Maestri di Casa, and thirteen more among the Gentlemen of the Chamber. 34 Gradually patricians acquired feudal titles appropriate to the Court setting. There were few fiefs in sixteenth-century Tuscany. In 1604 fifteen fiefs between Florence and Siena depended on ducal investiture, and nineteen others claimed a partial independence through old treaties of accomandaglia made with the Republic. 33 The number of Tuscan fiefs "

Ibid., F 321, 48sff., 673ff.

» For a partial list of fiefs in 1604, see ASF, Manoscritti, F 223, 90-91, "Feudatari dello stato di Firenze e di Siena et raccomandati a Sua Alt/a Ser/ma." On the sixteenth-century fiefs in general, see Fasano Guarini, Lo Stato Mediceo di Cosimo I, passim. For a list and description of the new fiefs in the order of their creation, see ASF, Riformationi, F 288. In the 1640s, 4 percent of the population of the Duchy as a whole lived under existing 35

PART I

increased in the seventeenth century partly through the infeudation of communes that had previously been under ducal administration, and partly through the regranting of older fiefs to new families. But Tus­ cany was a scarcely infeudated region. In the Duchy of Milan to the north, more than a thousand communities were under feudal jurisdic­ tion in this period, and the contrast with the kingdom of Naples is still more striking.36 The new fiefs were created chiefly during the regencies of Christine of Lorraine and Maria Maddalena d'Austria for Cosimo II and Ferdinando II (1609—36). They were carved out of rural commu­ nities or ducal estates, and their distribution evoked a willing response from the Florentine elite. There was a scramble to acquire honors. By 1621 the number of fiefs had grown from fifteen to twenty-three. In 1650 there were forty-seven, of which fourteen were in the hands of Florentine patricians. Vincenzo Salviati bought the commune of Montieri, south of Siena, as a marquisate from Ferdinando I in 1621 for 7,230 Scudi, to which his family was able to add a second fief at Boccheggiano in 1637. Lorenzo di Girolamo Guicciardini acquired the marquisate of Montegiovi in 1639, which Filippo Niccolini, who had possessed it since 1625, exchanged for the marquisate of Ponsacco and Camugliana. The Giugni, Delia Stufa, Capponi, Albizzi, Corsini, Guadagni, and Ridolfi soon followed.37 These were mostly depopu­ lated villages in the hills south of Pisa and Volterra, or in the lower reaches of the territory of Siena. Despite the sonorous legal phrases in the patents of investiture, the dukes conferred very limited rights of administration. The purchases marked a shift in patrician investments toward land, and helped to round out and secure control over landed estates. But the advantages of titles were chiefly political; they secured one a permanent place at the ducal Court. feudal jurisdictions or in communities that were later infeudated, although there was a difference between the Florentine Dominion (where the proportion of population was only 3 percent) and the State of Siena, where it was 14 percent; see Pansini, "Per una stona del feudalesimo," 131-47. 36

Sella, Crisis and Continuity, 151.

37

The Giugni at Camporsevoli in the State of Siena in 1630; the Delia Stufa at Calcione

in 1632; the Cappom, first at Maghano in 1635 and then at Montecchio in 1641 and at Loro in 1646; the Albizzi at Castelnuovo in 1639; the Corsmi at Laiatico in 1644; the Guadagni at S. Leolino del Conte in 1645; and the Ridolfi at Montescudaio in 1648; see ASF, Riformagioni,

F

288.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

Admission to the Order of St. Stephen became a usual point of con­ tact of a patrician house with the Court, and the Order, like possession of a distant fief, was less incompatible with the customary habits of Florentines than one might think. Unlike Knights of Malta, the Knights of St. Stephen could marry, and expeditions of the ducal fleet into the Mediterranean were not so frequent as to inhibit the activity of knights at home. The statutes of the Order did not permit Knights of St. Stephen to engage actively in commerce or practice mechanical trades, but management and investment in merchant companies does not seem to have given cause for concern. 38 More than one thousand knights were created by the first three dukes, and in their attempt to attract a glittering following, half were nobles from elsewhere in Italy or foreigners, chiefly Spaniards. Another quarter came from provincial Tuscan towns. But the remainder of the knights were Florentines, who appeared quickly after the founding of the Order, and then persistently. Some of these families founded Commende, endowments that pro­ vided a livelihood for sons from generation to generation. Of the 370 houses frequently priors in the fifteenth century that survived into the sixteenth, 156 ultimately presented proofs of nobility for admission to the Order of St. Stephen, 90 before 1600, 37 more before 1650, and 29 others before 1750. Of the 159 families that survived in the 1720s, 76 percent had presented proof for admission to the Order of St. Stephen at one time or another. 39 To be sure, some older Republican houses that survived in the eighteenth century had never appeared as Knights of St. Stephen, and one suspects that many of them were houses of quite modest standing, without the resources required by the Court. The adaptation of the elite can be followed more closely through dif­ ferent lines of some representative houses, for distinct branches of casate had different experiences, and it is clear from genealogies that some lines were more successful than others. There were five lines of Nic38

In the statutes of the Order, the Knight was to be ". . . egli stesso, padre, madre, avi

e auole dal Iato paterno e materno . . . disceso da casate nobili, . . . atti a . . godere nella patna Ioro quelli maggiori dignita e gradi che solo i pm nobili gentiluomini sogliono haver. . . . Sieno nati di legittimo matrimonio, non habbiano esercitato arte alcune, ma vissuti da gentiluomini . .

see Guarnieri, L'Ordme di S. Stefano, 1, 119. There are ex­

amples of Cavalieri registered as investors in business firms through accomandite of the Mercanzia, and even occasionally as managers ofnegozi di banco and negozi mercantile. 19

Families were identified from Guarnieri, L'Ordine di S. Stefano, iv.

PART I

colini in the sixteenth century, with fourteen sons who married in the generation born between 1500 and 1550. All were common descend­ ants of Lapo di Giovanni Niccolini (1356-1429) and stood together in scrutinies for offices in the quarter of Santa Croce, although not all households of the family still lived in that quarter. 40 Two other casate, the Alberti and the Guicciardini, were more compact. There was only one line of Alberti in the first generation after 1500, with four married sons in the Santa Croce quarter, and one line of Guicciardini, with five married sons who lived close together in the quarter of Santo Spirito. The Rucellai, a more complex group, were more numerous with eight­ een married sons, most of whom lived in the quarter of Santa Maria Novella. These four houses had been liberally represented among the priors of the fifteenth century, and all had a member among the original sen­ ators of the Duchy in 1532. But later, other branches were not equally fortunate in their relationship to the Court. Among the Niccolini, the first two lines contented themselves with the ordinary round of offices in the magistracies, as did the third and fourth lines, which became ex­ tinct in 1612 and in 1645. Only the fifth line—the descendants of Ottobuono di Lapo—clearly succeeded at the Court. This line had pro­ duced nine senators by the mid-seventeenth century. Agnolo di Matteo di Ottobuono Niccolini was later an intimate councillor of Cosimo I. He was educated in law at Pisa, and like his father was closely associated with the Medici in the transition to the Duchy. He was employed by Cosimo I in diplomatic missions in 1537 to Paul III in Rome, and in 1540 to the court of Charles V in Flanders. He was made a senator in 1541, a Gentleman of the Court in 1544, and was employed in further diplomatic missions in the 1550s at the time of the conquest of Siena, of which he was made governor in 1557. He was a man of letters and one of the founders of the Accademia Fiorentina. A widower, he en­ tered holy orders in order to be made archbishop of Pisa in 1564, a move that helped to secure ducal control of the Tuscan clergy; he was made a cardinal by Pius IV. His brother Piero was made a senator in 1564; Piero's son was also sent on diplomatic missions and was made a 40

On the Niccolini, see Passerini, Famiglia Niccolini. In the list of casate published by

D'Addario for 1551, there was a single casata of Niccolini in the Ruote Mzggiore gonfalone of the Santa Croce quarter; see D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 389.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

senator by Francesco I in 1587. He served as ambassador in Rome under Ferdinando I. In the next generation Francesco Niccolini (1584-1650) grew up at the Court, having been made a Knight of St. Stephen in 1598 at the age of fourteen. He accompanied his father to Rome, where he was made ambassador in 1621. His life ended at the Court of Ferdinando II. His brother Filippo (1586-1666) was appointed as a Gentleman of the Court in 1610, and was sent as an ambassador to Mantova and Parma before receiving the Court office as tutor to Prince Giovan Carlo De Medici. He was made Marquis of Montegiovi, south of Siena, in 1625, and later bought the large Medici estate of Camugliano, in the territory of Pisa, with which the neighboring commune of Ponsacco was made into a marquisate in 1637. Here he enlarged the existing villa, built towers at its four corners, commissioned rich frescoes for the hall, and constructed a chapel inlaid with marble and semiprecious stones.41 The Alberti, with only one line in the sixteenth century, were simi­ larly fortunate, as were the Guicciardini. The Alberti had produced five senators before 1650. Daniello Alberti (1503-73), the eldest son of one of the original senators in 1532, succeeded his father in the Senate in 1553. His younger brother Albertaccio, in the words of a nineteenthcentury genealogist, was "not remembered for the heroic defense of his fatherland against the forces of Charles V and Clement VII, but instead [was] with the many who crowded into the antechambers of Palazzo Medici as soon as Duke Alessandro was seated on the ruins of Floren­ tine liberty. Thus he was not left out in the distribution of offices . . . under Cosimo I." He served the duke during the Sienese War and was sent as ambassador to Constantinople. In 1565, Leon Battista Alberti, a son of Daniello, was inscribed in the first group of Knights of St. Ste­ phen, while a brother became a Knight of Malta. Both the son and grandson of Albertaccio were senators, and in the next generation Braccio Melchior Alberti (1603-56) was made a Gentleman of the Court of Ferdinando II and Cosimo III.42 Among the Guicciardini in the generation born after 1500 were nephews of the senator and histo­ rian Francesco Guicciardini, who had no sons. They were the children of his brothers Luigi, Jacopo, and Girolamo. The Guicciardini brothers 41 42

Passerini, FamigIia iViccoimi, 53-65. On the Alberti, see Passerini, Gli Alberti di Firenze, n, 225-41.

PART I

had quietly favored the creation of the Duchy, and Luigi and Girolamo were both made senators by Cosimo. In the sixteenth century the Guicciardini had large interests in banking in Rome, but they were also fa­ miliar with the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, to which their own palace was contiguous. They were often employed as ambassadors. By 1650 six other members of the family were made senators, another became a Knight of St. Stephen, and one, Piero di Agnolo Guicciardini, had ac­ quired the title of Marchese of Campiglia from Ferdinando II. 43 The experience of the Rucellai was more complex. The eighteen married sons of this house in the first generation after 1500 were di­ vided into three lines that descended from Bernardo di Giunta Rucellai in the fourteenth century. One line remained in the ordinary circle of offices and became extinct in the 1620s. The second line remained largely in the magistracies and ultimately died out in 1708, while the third line became the more prominent one. In the first years of the Duchy this included the nephews of Bernardo Rucellai, the patron of the Orti Oricellari gatherings after the Medici restoration of 1512, where Machiavelli's Discorsi were first read, and the cousins of Palla di Bernardo Rucellai, who was one of the first senators in 1532, although he opposed the election of Cosimo in 1537. This line ultimately pro­ duced two more senators. The remaining line of Rucellai shows the divisive effect of the poli­ tics of the sixteenth century on family cohesion. Luigi di Cardinale Ru­ cellai (1495-1549), an opponent of the Medici, emigrated from Flor­ ence in the first years of Cosimo I and died in exile in Rome. His son Orazio was brought up in France at the Court of Catherine De Medici and ultimately returned to Florence as an agent in negotiating the mar­ riage of Ferdinando I with the French Guise princess, Christine of Lor­ raine. Other kinsmen were early supporters of the Medici, but political division and exile in the sixteenth century reduced the Rucellai in num­ bers. Considering all lines together, from the eighteen married sons in the generation after 1500, only seven were produced in the first gener­ ation after 1600. Still, of these, one was a senator, two were Knights of St. Stephen, one was ambassador to Venice, and another was a Gentle­ man of the Court. 44 43 On the first generation of Guicciardini in the sixteenth century, see Starn, "Fran­ cesco Guicciardini," 411-44. For their later history, see notices in Litta and Passenni, Famiglie celebri, 11, fasc. xxi. 44 On the Rucellai, see Passerini, Famiglia Rucellai, 122-58.

ADAPTATION T O MEDICI C O U R T

Thus the officeholding elite of the fifteenth-century Republic re­ tained a vitality in the sixteenth century. But their conquest of the Med­ ici Court was only a part of their success. A community of Florentine merchants continued at Lyon until the 1560s, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century merchant companies were still in operation as far away as Cadiz, Lisbon, London, Antwerp, and Nuremberg.45 Sons disappointed by prospects at home sought their fortunes abroad in for­ eign Courts. Antonio Gondi, who started his career among the Flor­ entine merchants at Lyon in the mid-sixteenth century, received the Barony of Perron from Francis I in 1544, to which his son Alberto, who lived through the reign of Henry IV, added the Duchy of Retz, establishing this branch of the Gondi in France permanently.46 Baldo di Giovanni Corsi bought the fief of Cajazzo in the Kingdom of Naples from Philip III of Spain in 1617, and the Pucci became Marchesi of Barsento, at Bari, in 1664.47 Florentine bankers continued to be important in Rome through the first decades of the seventeenth century.48 Many sons of wellborn families found employment in the Church in Tuscany or at Rome. The Strozzi obtained the title of Counts Palatine from Ur­ ban VIII in the 1630s, fiefs and titles in the Kingdom of Naples, and then the title of Prince in 1722 from Innocent XIII.49 Lorenzo Corsini, elected in 1730 as Clement XII, was the last Florentine pope, and in the 1730s the Corsini, too, were made princes in Rome.50 Such dynasties did not have difficulty establishing themselves at seventeenth-century Courts. The GENTE NUOVA of the Seventeenth Century

The initial success of the patricians rode the wave of an upswing of the Florentine economy in the middle to last decades of the sixteenth cen­ tury. This recovery was followed by a depression in the first decades of the seventeenth century. The reversal brought new problems of pre­ serving family fortunes in a period of declining opportunities. In ad45

See Part V, chap. 11.

46

On the French branch of the Gondi, see Corbinelh, Histoire genealogique\ Litta and

Passerini, Famiglie celebri; Tiribilli-Giuliani, Sommario storico, II, ins. 95. 47

On the Corsi and Pucci, see Spreti, ed., Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare.

48

On Florentines in Rome, see Delumeau, Vte economique et sociale, 11, 845—937; Delu-

meau, L'alun de Rome, 98-103. 49

On the Strozzi in Naples and Rome, see Litta, Famiglie celebri.

50

Passerini, Famtglia Corsini, 131—212.

PART I

dition, newcomers had to be accommodated, not only at the ducal Court, but also in the offices of the magistracies of Florence, where a horde of gente nuova who had immigrated into the city sought full rights of citizenship through admission to the scrutinies of officehold­ ers. One would have expected stability at the upper level of Florentine society, but there was also fluctuation and mobility out of and into the elite. Here two factors were in operation. On the one hand, the number of houses in the elite decreased through misfortune and the gradual ex­ tinction of families. On the other hand, new families became estab­ lished in the scrutinies for the magistracies and at the Court. But the contest between patricians and gente nuova was not an equal one. New­ comers moved into and out of the Court and the city, while patricians remained more fixed. Still, in the seventeenth century, the number of old casate that could trace ancestors to the priors of the Republic dimin­ ished steadily. To confront economic adversity, the dukes helped to secure the credit of Florentine merchants and provided benefices, offices, and pensions to help avoid disaster for houses of the Court. The patricians themselves looked after poorer families in their group. 51 But at the Court, maintenance of an appropriate lifestyle could become an expen­ sive burden. Even so, a building boom took place in late sixteenth-century Florence during which the patricians rebuilt old palaces or con­ structed new ones appropriate to their station. The sixteenth-century palaces of Baccio di Agnolo, Ammannati, and Buontalenti were equal to the fifteenth-century ones, if not larger, and building continued into the seventeenth century. The Court architects Gherardo and Pierfrancesco Silvani designed palaces for the Capponi, Corsini, Marucelli, and Pecori, and redecorated others for the Guadagni, Guicciardini, Pucci, and Salviati. The last great constructions of the Panciatichi and the Capponi were built at the end of the seventeenth century by the Roman architect Fontana. 52 The expense of the Court became more difficult to justify in the eco­ nomic difficulties of the first decades of the seventeenth century. Sons of families that had operated commercial companies and textile firms S1

On views of poverty in fifteenth-century Florence, see Trexler, "Chanty and the

Defense of Urban Elites," 64-109; for sixteenth-century Venice, see Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice, 63-83 et passim. " Information on palaces of the patricians is from Limburger, Die Cebaude von Florenz.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

for generations began to appear less often as active partners and more often as silent investing partners. In a period of uncertainty and infla­ tion a safe investment was land, and multiple purchases of farms in the Tuscan countryside enlarged patrician estates, which promised a steady but smaller revenue than could be obtained from trade. Marriages be­ came an expensive proposition and required huge dowries that might consume several years of income. In the early sixteenth century, patri­ cians had contented themselves with relatively modest dowries, not much more than they had received from the Monte delle Doti of the Republic. But as they adapted to the Court the size of dowries rose steadily and much more steeply than the general inflation—a fact la­ mented by moralists.53 When Piero di Matteo Niccolini married Maddalena Antinori in 1535 the dowry was 2,648 Florins. When his son Lo­ renzo married in 1574 the dowry was 6,400 Scudi.54 But when Lorenzo's son Matteo, who later became a senator, married in 1629 the dowry was 13,000 Scudi. Among the descendants of Girolamo di Piero Guicciardini, the dowries rose from 3,180 Florins in 1547 to 8,000 Flor­ ins in 1587, and to 25,000 Scudi in 1616. The dowry of Benedetto di Giovanbattista Rucellai was 4,000 Scudi in 1611, his son Francesco's dowry was 10,500 Scudiin 1650.55 To help secure resources, families consolidated their wealth. This undoubtedly explains the rising marriage age for men and the tendency » Thus a memorandum of Francesco Acciaiuoli of 1618: ". . . l'incomportabile lusso dell' eccessive spese che si fanno m questa citta [di] msopportabili Doti, Ie quali son venute a tanto eccesso . . . che rovinano Ie case dove escano, e portano il fuoco con Ioro dove entrano, necessitando a spendere chi Ie riceve, et a chi Ie da, debihta Io Stato sino in mamero che e forzato chi ha piu figliuole, di mantarne a pena una sola. . . . E tutte l'altre farle monache per forza, con danno di mancanza di progenie see ASF, Misc. Med., F 34, ins. 54. For dowries in the fifteenth century, see Kirshner and Molho, "The Dowry Fund and the Marriage Market," 403-38. 54 The Scudo in this period was worth about 7 percent less than the Florin. " Information on dowries is from eighteenth-century summaries of the Gabella dei Contratti in ASF, Deputazione Nobilta, F 6, ins. 18 (Niccolini); F 2, ins. 18 (Guicciar­ dini); F 11, ins. 3 (Rucellai). These were big changes, even when considering the conver­ sion from Florins to Scudi, devaluation of Scudi in silver, and the sixteenth-century price rise, all of which made prices of the 1610s nearly double those of the 1520s; see Parenti, "Prezzi e salari a Firenze," 205-58. The face value of known dowries for the nineteen fam­ ilies cited below increased from an index of 1.00 in 1500-49, when the mean was 1,800 Scudi (twelve cases), to 2.28 in 1550-99 (twenty-seven cases), to 5.50 in 1600-49 (thirtyeight cases), and to 5.80 in 1650-99 (forty-two cases).

PART I

to limit marriages. Judging from the genealogies of nineteen houses, only one son per father, on the average, married in the seventeenth cen­ tury. The median marriage age for men was twenty-nine years in the early sixteenth century, but rose to thirty-three for the cohort born in 155°-99, to thirty-four in 1600-49, an d to thirty-six in 1650-99, before falling again to twenty-eight years in the eighteenth century. Women continued to marry at age eighteen to twenty.56 Slightly more daugh­ ters, whose dowries came from their fathers' families, married than sons, which permitted families of high standing to create networks of clients in the city by offering brides to sons of families with relatively lower standing. But at the top of the social hierarchy, well-dowered daughters were hard to find for sons' marriages. This kept the marriage age of sons high. Limitation of marriages enlarged the population of convents and sent unmarried sons out in search of independent means of support, while helping to assure that family resources would con­ tinue undivided. Unfortunately, since all married sons did not have children, limitation of marriage also made it more likely that casate would become extinct for lack of direct or collateral heirs. The number of collateral lines, which had accounted for the numerous patrician households in the fifteenth century, steadily diminished after 1500. Some houses continued artificially by substituting heirs who adopted their names, but the pattern of marriage was such that from one thou­ sand married sons in the mid-fifteenth century, one might expect only 480 different lines to remain at the end of the sixteenth century, and only 211 by the end of the seventeenth.57 The disappearance of houses had been a source of woe in Florence since the time of Dante. When the Abate Mariani compiled his priorista in the 1720s, he noted the houses from the Republic that he believed had become extinct. Only 159 of the 426 casate prominent among priors of the fifteenth century still survived in the city in Mariani's day. He did not know the date of extinction of many of the families, and some may have simply emigrated or fallen to a lower social standing. 56

Litchfield, "Demographic Characteristics," 191-205. These houses were the Alberti, Altoviti, Baldovinetti, Corsini, Gianni, Gmori, Guadagni, Mannelli, Niccohni, Orlandi, Pecori, Pepi, Rondinelli, Rucellai, Bartolommei, Cerchi, Riccardi, Ricasoli, and Ubaldini. A similar demographic weakness affected the patricians of Milan, see Zanetti, La demografia del patriziato milanese. 57 Litchfield, "Demographic Characteristics," 201.

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

But among patricians whose ancestors had frequently been priors in the fifteenth century, he provides a date of extinction for 36 in the six­ teenth century, 112 in the seventeenth century, and 19 in the first dec­ ades of the eighteenth century. These included the Ferrucci, "anciently extinct"; the Leoni, extinct in Roberto di Francesco, "dead in the wars of Flanders in 1596"; the Fioravanti, extinct in 1608; Benci in 1611; Amadori in 1636; Belfredelli in 1647; Del Benino in 1679; Pilli in 1708; and Cionacci in 1713.58 As houses disappeared, others that had been outside of the fifteenthcentury group replaced them in the scrutinies of officeholders for the magistracies and among aspirants for honors of the Court. There were different paths of upward mobility. At a lower level a wave of non-no­ ble immigrants entered the city in the period of relative prosperity of the 1560s to 1620s, and to the extent that they had sufficient property to be assessed for taxes they pressed to become citizens and move up­ ward into the magistracies. At a higher level, families who had wealth and standing but a minor role in the priorate of the fifteenth century aspired to offices, and there was a continuous lateral movement into Florence of foreigners and notables from provincial towns. Some of them became established permanently in the city. The influx of newcomers at a lower social level followed the general trend of the city's population growth. At the time of a census of Cosimo I in 1551 the population was 59,551. In 1622 it had increased to 76,023. It fell to 66,056 in 1632, as a result of the plague in 1630; but it recovered to 69,749 in 1642, and then remained about the same until the early eighteenth century.59 It is also possible to estimate the general contours of change between these dates through the number of yearly baptisms at S. Giovanni Battista, the baptismal font for the city and its immediately surrounding rural area.60 Deaths were not recorded reg­ ularly until the 1780s, so no assessment can be made of the natural growth rate, or the balance between births and deaths. A third source is a Tratte list of new citizens drawn for the Collegio, the office that s8 ASF, Manoscritti, F F 248-53, Priorista Mariani, No. 332 (Ferrucci), No. 560 (Leoni), No. 651 (Benci), No. 437 (Amadori), No 539 (Belfredelli), No. 660 (Del Benino), No. 181 (P1II1), No. 723 (Cionacci). 59 For the population history of Florence, see Pardi, "Disegno della storia demografica," 3-84, 185-245; Del Panta, Una traccia di storia demografica. 60 Lastri, Ricerche sull' anlica e moderna popolazione di Firenze.

PART I

conferred the right of hereditary inclusion in the scrutinies, which was compiled at the end of the seventeenth century and continued until the suppression of the Tratta in 1782. 61 Admission to Florentine citizenship required roughly the same pro­ cedure under the Duchy that it had under the Republic: residence in the city for thirty years, a certain amount of real property assessed in the land tax, and approval of the Council of 200 or the duke. But qualifi­ cation for citizenship was only the first step toward officeholding in the magistracies. The second step was approval in one of the scrutinies, which every fifteen to twenty years made up the borse of men eligible for selection. Citizens who had been veduti or seduti, "selected" or "seated," for the Buonuomini of the Collegio, or enjoyed the benefizio of these offices through their casata, were admitted for consideration automatically, while at each scrutiny only a small number of newcom­ ers was admitted to the lists. 62 From the point of view of the patricians, selection for the Collegio was very significant and marked the defini­ tive admission of newcomers to the officeholding group. An index of veduti, baptisms, and total population, with the central years of the reign of Cosimo I as a common base (Figure 2.1), shows the trend of arrival of new citizens into the magistracies, if not into the circle of the Court. Birth rates were more consistent than death rates in early modern populations, so that the trend of births over time can serve as a rough index of population size, and the index of births cor­ responds fairly veil to the index of the known population. 63 Both in­ dices of births and new citizens were at low points in the 1540s to 1560s. Historians have assumed that in the years of establishment of the 61 ASF, Tratte, F 1136, "Specchietto delle famiglie che hanno acquistato Io stato dal principato in qua. . . ." This list of names appears to have been compiled for internal use of the Tratte in the early eighteenth century, and was kept up to date until suppression of the Tratte in 1782. Another similar list is ASF, Manoscritti, F 420. 62 These procedures are best described in ASF, Tratte, F 1101, "Registro legale, ossia repertorio di massime relative alle tratte ed a tutti gli uffizi" (by Michele Paci, 1595), 624 et passim. 6> The plague of 1630 clearly had important repercussions, and probably affected the young and elderly more than adult childbeanng couples. Therefore, births remained high relative to total population for the years after 1630 but then fell abnormally in the 1650s, as the Figure 2.1 shows, when the smaller number of children surviving the plague reached childbearing age.

FIGURE 2. I

Tot pop 100= 1551 (59,551)

0

Thirty-five-year trend

Baptisms 100 = Av 1540-59 (2,415)

(Jive-year totals)

1500-1800

New citizens 100 = Tot 1550-54 ( 4 1 ) - * — * -

B A P T I S M S , A N D NEW C I T I Z E N S " V E D U T I DI C O L L E G I O " AT F L O R E N C E ,

I N D E X Of T O T A L P O P U L A T I O N ,

PART I

Duchy, Cosimo I flooded the officeholding group with new men.64 But few new citizens were made eligible for the magistracies from the end of the 1530s to the very last years of Cosimo—the late 1560s and early 1570s—when the city's population had begun to increase. New citizens began to be approved in some number beginning with the scru­ tiny of 1563-64. The index of births continued to increase in the last decades of the sixteenth century until it reached a high point about 1620, after which it fell irregularly to a low slightly above that of the mid-sixteenth century about 1720. The trend of admission of new citizens to the Collegio thus lagged about a generation behind the rise in the index of births. Citizens tended to be νeduti in years just after general scrutinies of officeholders, a practice that became more marked after about 1660. The largest num­ ber of new νeduti was in the three decades after the plague of 1630. The fall in the index of births after the 1620s corresponds to the seven­ teenth-century recession in the Florentine economy, and it is significant that the largest number of admissions to the Collegio was in a period when opportunities to acquire wealth in the city were becoming more limited. Although, as we will see below, the new citizens of the sev­ enteenth century did indeed enter the officeholding group for the mag­ istracies, few had the resources necessary to rise to the level of the Court. Lists of salariati in the ducal household give an impression of the identity of new men at the seventeenth-century Court, and there was not much relationship between the Court lists and the lists of veduti from the Tratte. To be sure, some newcomers among nobles of the Court eventually were made eligible for the magistracies, but new cit­ izens and courtiers remained largely distinct. The Court was made up of individuals of quite diverse origin. One notices the appearance but then the disappearance of Spanish houses among the followers of Cosimo I, the continual arrival of notables from the provincial towns, and the rise and fall of dynasties of ducal secretaries, such as the Vinta, Concini, and Usimbardi. Umbrian nobles involved in the Medici claim of succession to the Duchy of Urbino appeared briefly during the 1630s 64

See, for example, Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 154, ". . . dopo i primi contrasti

causati dalle grande famiglie, solo una nuova aristocrazia di benefiziati con Ie elargizioni del principe si forma e si stringe ligia intorno al Duca."

ADAPTATION TO MEDICI COURT

and 1640s, and later there were a few exiles from England and France during the English Civil War and the Fronde.65 But not all men of the Court from outside of the group from the priorate were foreigners to the city. The elite of Renaissance Florence had been more inclusive and diverse than the casate frequently priors in the fifteenth century might lead one to believe. Many quite important houses had appeared infrequently as priors because they were banned as magnati or because they were wealthy families not yet established in the officeholding group. The Cerchi were an ancient house of popolani banned as magnati for political reasons in the fourteenth century, and had only one prior in the fifteenth century, but they emerged at Court in the generation of Vieri di Alessandro De Cerchi (1588-1646), who was made a senator in 1641. His son Alessandro was a Knight of St. Stephen, secretary to Ferdinando II, and a senator. In the next genera­ tion, Cavaliere Cerchio De Cerchi was equally favored by Cosimo III.66 Other houses rose to prominence through fortunes accumulated in the sixteenth-century economic upswing. For example, the Riccardi were citizens of Florence in the fourteenth century and had humble origins. They rose rapidly in wealth in the early years of the fifteenth century, and were among the households with the highest assessments in the 1427 Catasto; but they never passed through the scrutinies into the priorate. They returned to Pisa, where they owned a country estate, toward the end of the century and reemerged in Florence at the time of the Medici restoration in 1512, when Gabbriello Riccardi made an ad­ vantageous marriage with the Rucellai. As important bankers in Pisa, the Riccardi advanced upward easily under the Medici. Gabbriello's son Giovanni married the daughter of Senator Alamanno De Medici. Ofhis three sons, the first managed the Riccardi bank at Pisa and took care of investments in Florence and of their Pisan estate at Villa Saletta. Francesco, the second son, was made a senator in 1596 and married into the Mannelli house. Riccardo, the third son, marked the family's defi­ nite establishment at the top of the social hierarchy. He formed a large collection of antiquities and manuscripts, and was known for the elab­ orate entertainments in the gardens of a villa in the Via Gualfonda, near 6i

A S F , Manoscntti,

F

321, "Cariche d'onore concesse da S. Ser. GG. Duchi"; Ga-

murrini, Istoriagenealogica, passim. 66

A S F , Carte Cerchi,

F

167, "Storia

di famiglia."

PART I

Santa Maria Novella. At the time of his death, in 1612, the family for­ tune was valued at more than 300,000 Scudi. In the next generation, Cosimo and Gabbriello, Francesco's sons, were favorites of Ferdinando I. The two brothers acquired the marquisate of Chianni, south of Pisa, in 1629, to which a second Comune, Rivalto, was added in 1634. In 1659 they bought the old Medici palace in Via Larga, which Cosimo's son Francesco later enlarged. With large investments in the Florentine silk industry and landed estates in Tuscany and in the Papal States, they were still very prominent at the Medici Court in the eighteenth cen­ tury.67 Among non-Florentines in the Court lists are names of notables from provincial towns. Francesco Feroni rose from small beginnings in the provincial town of Empoli and made his commercial fortune not in Florence, but in Amsterdam, first as an agent for the Buonaccorsi, and then as an independent merchant. He returned to Florence and became a favorite of Cosimo III, who made him Marchese of Bellavista, a Med­ ici estate, in 1683. His family acquired a large palace in Via dei Serragli.68 Other provincial houses of importance were the Inghirami of Volterra, Marsili of Siena, Lanfranchi-Rossi of Pisa, Albergotti of Arezzo, Passerini ofCortona, and Sozzifanti ofPistoia. Foreign nobles established themselves in the city through Court favor. The Aldana, fa­ vorites of Cosimo I, received the visto for the magistracies in 1639; the Barbolani di Montauto, descendants of one of the commanders of troops of Cosimo I, were made Marchesi of Montevitozzo by Ferdinando II in 1635; and the Ramirez da Montalvo were made Lords of Sasseta in 1563 and veduti in 1647.69 Sebastiano di Tommaso Ximines di Aragona, from a house of Portuguese nobles, was made Lord of Saturnia in the territory of Siena by Ferdinando I in 1593. In the words of a seventeenth-century priorista, "an uncle made by Ferdinando Cavaliere [of St. Stephen] died in this city leaving 100,000 Scudi to charity between here and Portugal, by which it is believed [the Ximines] have 67 On the Riccardi, see Lami, Kiia Riccardo Romuli Riceardi; Malanima, I Rieeardt di Firenze, 3-76. 6g The rise of the Feroni is described in ASF, Carte Sebngondi, 2168. 69 On the Aldana, see Spreti Eneielopedia storico-nobiliare, and ASF, Nobilta e cittadi1 nanza, F 15, ins. 16; on the Barbolani di Montauto, see Spreti, I, 509, and ASF, Nobilta e cittadinanza, F 12, ins. 15; on the Ramirez da Montalvo, see ASF, Nobilta e cittadinanza, F 12, ins. 15.

A D A P T A T I O N TO MEDICI COURT

great wealth in trade. . . ." The Ximines acquired a handsome palace built by San Gallo in Borgo Pinti, where they remained.70 Thus, newcomers to Florence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were split into two levels. At the lower level were non-noble citizens, who through successive scrutinies were made eligible for offices in the magistracies. At the upper level were families who considered themselves to be "nobles": former magnati, feudal nobles, foreign nobles, and patricians from provincial towns. The dividing line between the two levels was access to the Court, which became the highest social ambition. But this is not to say that newcomers at the Court eclipsed the patricians. An inquiry into the identity of nobles in the eighteenth century shows that patricians and courtiers were largely the same group. 70

ASF, Manoscntti, F 223.

51

3 THE E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y L I B R I D I O R O OF T H E HAPSBURG-LORRAINE

The outcome of the patricians' transformation into nobles emerges clearly through a 1750 law that required the registration of patricians and nobles after extinction of the Medici, under the new dynasty of the Hapsburg-Lorraine. The dukes had recognized as nobles Florentine popolani of old establishment, magnati, feudal nobles, Knights of St. Stephen, patricians of provincial towns, and new nobles of their own creation. These groups overlapped to a large extent, but they never recognized the nobles of Tuscany as a single order or estate, as one would anticipate in northern Europe. To be sure, nobles were identifiable. They could be singled out in the scrutinies for offices, at Court functions, and by the honors accorded to them on other occasions. A number of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century lists of Florentine "noble" families attest to the consciousness of standing. 1 The patricians of Florence were a definite group, but they were not legally defined as such until the new regime in the eighteenth century of the HapsburgLorraine. The death in 1737 of the last Medici duke, Gian Gastone, who had succeeded Cosimo III in 1720, and the arrival in Florence from Vienna of regents for Francis Stephen of Lorraine marked another break in the continuity of Florentine tradition. The extinction of the Medici endangered the independence of the Duchy, for in the new alignment of powers after the War of Spanish Succession, Tuscany became a pawn of Bourbon and Hapsburg diplomacy. By the Treaty in London, of 1718, the Duchy was destined to pass to Don Carlos, the son of Elizabeth Farnese, heiress of Parma and Piacenza, and through her husband 1

An anonymous list entitled "Notni del Gentiluomim Fiorentini viventi l'anno 1685" provides the names of 385 families, some of whom had appeared as priors of the Republic, some as Knights of St. Stephen, some were nobles with fiefs and some were otherwise established at the Court; see ASF, Manoscritti, F 452

52

THE LIBRI DI ORO

Philip V of Spain it would go under Spanish and Bourbon control. But then, after the War of Polish Succession, Don Carlos became king of Naples and Tuscany was awarded to Francis Stephen, the consort of Empress Maria Theresa. This was done to compensate him for his loss of the Duchy of Lorraine to the successful Bourbon candidate for the throne of Poland. Thus Tuscany became a possession of the Hapsburgs. The patricians of the Medici Court viewed the arrival of the regents for Francis Stephen with dismay and alarm. They had had a long-established relationship with Spain and had anticipated that under the rule of Don Carlos, Tuscany would preserve a greater independence. Milan, which had also passed to the Austrian Hapsburgs, had suffered during the recent wars, and served as a warning of the reversals of for­ tunes that might result from a change of regime. The regents in Flor­ ence, the Prince de Craon and Count de Richecourt, were followed by a number of displaced Lorrainers who had served Francis Stephen at Nancy. Their dispatches to Vienna reveal the awareness that the Span­ ish ambassador in Florence, Don Ascanio, encouraged Florentines to entertain hopes of a Bourbon regime. In Rome the Florentine pope, Clement XII, also pursued a pro-Spanish policy, as did others of his family, notably Don Bartolommeo Corsini, who became viceroy of Sicily for the new king of Naples. The outbreak of the War of Austrian Succession in 1740 increased the regents' apprehension, for if Tuscany had been invaded by Spain with France's support the new regime might well have collapsed.2 But in Florence, the regents made it clear that Tuscany was a subject province of Vienna. The treaties had guaranteed a large measure of in­ dependence from the Empire, but this autonomy seemed disputable when Francis Stephen was crowned emperor as Francis I in 1745. To meet the fiscal needs of Vienna during the war, the Duchy was obliged to contribute its share of revenue. The fiscal exactions began in the spring of 1739, and in 1740 the ducal treasury was put into the hands of a French company of tax farmers.3 Although the Senate, Council of 200, and magistracies proceeded at first on their old basis, the tensions 2

The first years of the Regency are described m N. Rodolico, La reggenza Lorenese, and

in his "Emanuele de Richecourt," 362-78. J

Venturi, Settecento riformatore, 1, 199-346.

PART I

between the regents and Medici administration were obvious. Richecourt, who became the chief figure in the Council of Regency, showed little patience with Florentines in his dispatches to Vienna, and the pa­ tricians, for their part, attempted to undermine his authority through direct appeals to the Imperial Court. In response, Richecourt empha­ sized the necessity of reducing the entire ducal administration to a more efficient system. 4 The changes did not begin until the end of the 1740s, when the Empire began to emerge from the crisis evoked by the war, but they eventually changed the whole nature of the Medici system. The first measures included a project for a new Tuscan civil code, a law restricting entails in 1747, a regulation of ducal fiefs in 1749, and a law that redefined the legal status of patricians, nobles, and citizens in 1750. This law pertained to Florence and to the thirteen other Tuscan towns where citizens claimed to be nobles, and it continued to define the status of patricians and nobles into the nineteenth century. 5 In its elaboration, Richecourt was assisted by a number of Tuscan advisors, who viewed the Regency as means for advancement, and also for car­ rying out legislation of a more progressive type than had been possible under the last Medici. In this group a prominent figure was Pompeo Neri, whose origins were at the small town of Castel Fiorentino near Volterra. After studying law at Pisa, he had followed his father into of­ fice in Florence and was made a secretary of the Council of Regency in 1737. 6 Ultimately he was entrusted to oversee the projects to create a new civil code, devise regulations for restricting entails and feudal ju­ risdictions, and define the civil status of nobles and citizens. Pompeo Neri's Discorso sopra Io stato antico e moderno della nobilta Toscana was written in 1748 to survey existing legislation before drafting the new law. The work showed some of the first traces of the Enlight­ enment in Tuscany, but it also looked backward to the Republic and to the treatises that had discussed the noble status of Florentine citizens more than a century earlier. However, Neri abandoned the rhetoric of the sixteenth century in favor of a more historical and legalistic ap­ proach. He was not advocating change in local tradition. A noble order seemed to him a natural phenomenon with which the legislation of the 4

Rodolico, "Emanuele de Richecourt."

! The 6

law is printed in Cantini, LegisIazione Toscana, xxvi, 23 iff.

See Rocchi, "Pompeo Neri," 255-69; Venturi, Illuministi italiani, 111, 945-50.

THE LIBRI DI ORO

Duchy should be in harmony. The treatise distinguished "natural no­ bility"—virtue and the respect accorded to the memory of virtuous ancestors—from "civil nobility," the legal status regulated by law that confers "the right to govern that in all states and populations is ac­ corded to a select number of persons."7 He felt the two types of nobility should be one. Neri thought the "natural" nobility of Tuscany had been the families who governed the Republic, and he traced their dis­ tant origins to the time of Rome. The civil status of the city's most an­ cient citizens had been lost during the Lombard invasions and were re­ stored in the procedures for habilitating citizens for the magistracies of the Republic. But it had again fallen into abuse under the Duchy when the Medici had ignored the distinction between the higher and lower orders of citizens in the major and minor guilds and had accorded civil status indiscriminately to favorites of the Court.8 Thus Neri's treatise was an indictment of the Medici Court, with which Richecourt and his advisors had to struggle during the first years of the Regency, and a vindication of the civic traditions of the city, which he identified with the ruling group of the Republic. This gave his treatise an ahistorical quality, inasmuch as he had an unclear view of the history of the Republic, and ignored the extent to which patricians and functionaries of the Medici Court had become the same. But his aim was to guarantee the civil status of Florentines, and this was obliquely in accord with Richecourt's aim to establish a uniform legal status for nobles. Richecourt was interested less in Florentine tradition than in administrative efficiency. As he wrote to Vienna, ". . . one of the prerogatives of citizens being employment in the magistracies and tribunals of the capital. . . consequences have necessarily resulted that are prejudicial to the state itself, for all kinds of people have been indis­ criminately admitted to citizenship."9 For Florentine families to be rec­ ognized as nobles they would henceforth be obliged to submit formal proofs to a deputation that would validate their qualifications and reg­ ister them in Golden Books, like the nobles of Venice. The law recognized three ranks: patricians, nobles, and citizens.10 7

Neri, "Nobilta Toscana," 556.

8

Ibid., 567-636.

9

Ibid. Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xxvi, 231-41, and the further instructions on pp. 242-

46. 334-35-

PART I

Patricians were required to submit proofs that their direct ancestors had been admitted to the highest offices of the city more than two hundred years earlier, that is, to the tre maggiori uffizi e Ioro annessi before 1530; families possessing fiefs or those who had proved nobility through quarterings of lineage for admission to the Order of St. Stephen were also included, as were houses that could prove to have been magnati an­ ciently. Other families were recognized in the second category of no­ bles if their claims rested on no more than the foundation of a commenda in the Order of St. Stephen, or possession of a recent personal patent of nobility for less than fifty years, and if they had contracted marriages with other families of standing and had sufficient wealth to assure maintenance of a decorous style of life. Insofar as the patricians and no­ bles satisfied the requirements of Florentine citizenship, they were also citizens. Florentine citizenship continued to require assessment for the land tax, for which the minimum assessment was now raised from two Florins to six; residence in the city; and approval of the Council of Re­ gency. By raising the tax requirement, the new regulation excluded a large number of citizens who had previously qualified for offices." Be­ sides Florence, the law applied to thirteen provincial towns where citi­ zens traditionally claimed to be nobles. Of these, six—Arezzo, Cortona, Pisa, Pistoia, Siena, and Volterra—were to have their own registers of patricians and nobles drawn up with much the same criteria as those of Florence. The others—Colle, Livorno, S. Miniato, Montepulciano, Pescia, Prato, and S. Sepolcro—were only to have registers of nobles. Families who proved patrician or noble status in one place could be admitted to equivalent rank in the others. The deputation began its work in 1751. The new law seemed to promise the Florentine elite continued enjoyment of a special status, and the registration of families proceeded quickly. Judging from the applications for recognition, 244 families proved their patrician status and 26 were registered as nobles in 1751. By 1759, the number of pa­ tricians had increased to 314, and the number of nobles to 63. The dep­ utation continued to function during the last years of the Regency, and later, after 1765, under the new duke, Peter Leopold. Between 1760 and " For a list of names of persons excluded from "citizenship" by the law, see A S F , Tratte, F 1022, "Nomi e casate che restano escluse dalla cittadinanza per non avere i sei fionni in vigore della legge di SMI del di p/o Ottobre 1750. . . ."

THE LIBRI DI ORO

1800, 71 additional families proved patrician status, 71 were recognized as nobles, and nine who had originally been nobles succeeded in pre­ senting new proofs as patricians. The patricians may have viewed the new regulation with misgivings, as Horace Mann, the English diplo­ matic resident in Florence noted: "Many of the chief families, I hear, intend to take no notice of this edict; let the consequence be what it will of their not being in the Libri di Oro." 12 But still they fulfilled the pro­ visions of the law. The proofs of nobility consisted of authenticated genealogies from the Catasti and Decima, extracts from prioriste, copies of marriage con­ tracts from the Gabella dei Contratti, coats of arms, and copies of pat­ ents of nobility, which reveal the identity of patricians and nobles in de­ tail. 13 Table 3.1 presents a summary of information about the origins of families passed by the deputation between 1751 and 1800. Patricians have been listed separately from nobles, and families presenting proofs to the deputation before 1760, when most of the older patricians had made their appearance, have been separated from families recognized by the deputation later in the century. Since a number of lines de­ scended from the same Republican casata presented their proofs to the deputation separately, families have been counted both by casata and by application for recognition. In the eighteenth century, names still con­ cealed the existence of more than one line. Among the houses that proved patrician status before 1760, the con­ tinuity from the Republic is very clear: the elite from the fifteenth cen­ tury priorate was still the most prominent group in the Libri di Oro. Of the 426 casate successful four times or more in the selection of priors in the fifteenth century, 372 had survived in the sixteenth century, the descendants of 150 were still living at the time of the inquiry of the Abate Mariani in the 1720s, and 133 were eventually inscribed in the Libri di Oro as patricians. It is difficult to assess the significance of this rate of persistence, but 30 to 35 percent survivors over two and a half centuries would seem a respectable figure. The original group was now much reduced in size, but its importance is nonetheless clear. Counting by casata, houses that had frequently been priors accounted for 56 per­ cent of the patricians in 1760. And if the forty-three houses that had 12 IJ

Lewis, ed., Horace Walpole's Correspondence, iv, 192-93. These are preserved in ASF, Archivio della deputazione sopra la nobilta Toscana.

PART I TABLE ]H O U S E S

31

R E G I S T E R E D 1 N T H E FLORENTINE L I B R I D I O R C I ,

1 7 5 I - l800 SEN

ORSS

FT

CA

PATRICIANS

175 1 - 5 9

RF

SEN

ORSS

FT

CA

RF

PATRICIANS 1760- -1800

P+4

S9

III

127

202

3

6

6

P

I8

30

3

42

47

I

3

4

M

4

7

2

9

IO

AC

4

8

15

17

I

C

7

S 7

25

28

2

POT

16 I

TOTAL

123

4 S

I 2

I

U

32

173

52

227

I

4 6

314

3

I

IO

IO

12

I

20

23

8 6

I

12

13

2

Η

14

4

66

71

32

NOBLES i1760-

NOBLES I 7 5 I - 59

I

1800

P+4 P I

AC C POT U TOTAL

I

I

27 I

I

39

42

I

2

2

4

2

15

33

4

57

18

6 3 7.

63

16

19

19

2

H 38

38

2

71

71

14

KEY. SEN = Senators, ORSS = Order of St Stephen, FT = Fief or title, CA = Casate; RF = Registered families; P + 4 — Four or more priors in the fifteenth century; P = Priors under the Republic but less than four times in the fifteenth century; M = Claimed to have been Magnati under the Republic but no priors; AC = Claimed to have been Ancient citizens under the Republic but no priors, c = Citizens after 1530, POT = Patrician or noble of other town, υ = Uncertain or unknown

been priors at other periods of the Republic, or less frequently in the fifteenth century, are also included, the proportion of patrician houses in 1760 that could trace ancestors to priors of the Republic increases to 75 percent. In addition, fourteen houses claimed old standing in the city, although they had never had priors, and nine claimed that their ancestors were magnati and thus had been barred from office. The dep­ utation also included as patrician thirty-four houses that had become established in the city after 1530. These were patricians of other towns, or families established at the Medici Court by acquiring fiefs or through the Order of St. Stephen. Most of the survivors from the priorate had also established them­ selves at the Court. Indeed, their success was better than that of any of the other groups in this regard. It is difficult to distinguish with abso­ lute certainty among collateral lines in some cases, but 70 percent of 58

THE LIBRI DI ORO

houses that had frequently been priors had had some members among the senators of the Duchy, in comparison with 42 percent of houses ap­ pearing as priors less frequently, 31 percent of the ancient citizens or magnati who were never priors, and only 23 percent of the newcomers since 1530. Similarly, 87 percent of the houses frequently priors had ap­ peared in the Order of St. Stephen, compared with 62 percent of those in the other three groups combined. Still, the number of families with fiefs or titles remained small. Only fifty-four patrician houses had some title, of which thirty traced ancestors to priors of the fifteenth century. Of the thirty, eleven had ducal fiefs in Tuscany, seven had fiefs outside of Tuscany, and twelve had simple titles of honor. Titles mostly reflected membership in the Order of St. Stephen. Only twenty-four houses remaining from the fifteenth-century group in 1760 had no honor of knighthood or title from the Medici, and of these, ten had been senators and two others were admitted to the Order of St. Stephen later in the eighteenth century under the Hapsburgs. The houses whose ancestors had appeared less frequently as priors can be grouped with those who claimed ancient standing but had never been in the priorate. It is tempting to assume they had been relatively unimportant houses in the fifteenth century, and indeed some rose to prominence only after 1530. The Bartolommei, priors five times be­ tween 1493 and 1532, made their social ascent in the seventeenth cen­ tury, when they acquired the marquisate of Montegiovi from Ferdinando II in 1677. The Martellini had had two priors, in 1470 and in 1515, and entered the Order of St. Stephen in 1669, while the Dell'Anchisa had had only one prior, in 1475, and had not entered the Order of St. Stephen until 1728. 14 But other houses in this group, such as the Bardi and Cerchi, had high standing in the fifteenth century and appeared infrequently as priors because they were considered magnati. The Covoni, Gori, Panciatichi, Riccardi, Del Sera, Spina, and Ughi had never been priors, although they all had considerable wealth at the time of the 1427 Catasto.' 5 Of these sixty-five houses, twenty-five had 14 On the Bartolommei, see A S F , Manoscritti, FF 248-53, and Pnorista Mariani, No. 1495, Deputazione Nobilta, F 1, ins. 13; on the Martellini, see Priorista Mariam No. 1489, Deputazione Nobilta, F 3, ins. 7. 15 In their provanze di nobilta, genealogies are traced backward to the Catasto of 1427, although it is difficult to be sure of collateral branches. Nonetheless, the Catasto had ten

PART I

been among the senators of the Duchy, forty-five had entered the Order of St. Stephen, and eleven had fiefs or titles, including the Bourbon Del Monte, the Gherardesca, Malaspina, and Ricasoli, who still possessed ancient fiefs from the fourteenth century or before. The thirty-four houses registered as patricians who were newcomers to the city since 1530, or whose origins are uncertain, were divided chiefly between foreign nobles from the sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Court and patricians from provincial Tuscan towns, such as the Bartolini-Baldelli of Cortona; the Forti, Ganucci, and Incontri of Volterra; and the Marsili of Siena. The newcomers seem very few when one considers the number of foreign nobles who had frequented the Medici Court at one time or another. The law of 1750 relegated other newcomers to the category of nobles, and the fifty-seven "noble" houses had all established themselves in Florence since 1530. In the normal course of events, through ducal favor, marriage with older families, and good fortune, these houses might anticipate merging eventually with the older group; in fact, nine of the original nobles presented new proofs and were reregistered as patricians before 1800. The "nobles" generally were of more recent establishment than the newcomers registered as "patricians," and they came from the smaller and less important towns: the Guerrini, new citizens from Marradi who had been visti di collegio in 1561; the Comparini, from Lastra a Signa who were visti in 1588; and the Anforti from Ponte a Sieve who were visti in 1673.16 The nobles also included a few houses of Lorrainers who had arrived in Florence with the Hapsburgs—the Gaulard, Gervais, Gilles, Grobert, Lottinger, and De Poirot—but in 1760 the number of such foreign nobles was as yet small.17 In the 1750s the patricians and nobles registered in the Libri di Oro still looked backward to the Republic and to the Duchy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By contrast, houses inscribed in the Libri di Oro later in the century were indicative of what the Florentine elite was households of Covoni, six Gori, two Panciatichi, two Riccardi, four Del Sera, seventeen Spina, and four Ughi. 16 For the Anforti, see ASF, Deputazione Nobilta, F 18, ins. 2; Guerrini, F 19, ins. 21; Comparini, F 18, ins. 25; Soldani-Benzi, F 21, ins. 12. " For the Gaulard, see ASF, Deputazione Nobilta, F 19, ins. 14; Gervais, F 19, ins. 15; Gilles, F 19, ins. 18; Grobert, F 19, ins. 19; Lottinger, F 19, ins. 23; De Poirot, F 20, ins. 25. 60

THE LIBRI DI ORO

becoming. The tendency of older families to die out continued in the eighteenth century, and few houses from the Republic that had not al­ ready presented proofs as patricians by 1760 emerged later in the cen­ tury to replace those that became extinct. Of 170 patrician houses from the Republic in the first decade of registration, 5 were already extinct in the male line in 1760. Their proofs had been presented by last-surviving males or by females, and 47 more houses became extinct before 1800. Some additional branches of families emerged later in the century to claim inheritances, and were entered in the Libri di Oro in the place of their relatives. But of the sixty-six patricians newly registered after 1760, only ten could trace their family origins to priors of the Republic, and ten others claimed ancient standing as citizens, or to have been magnati.

The eighteenth century thus marked a further step in the decline of the older elite, and after 1760 there was also an acceleration in the emer­ gence of new nobles, many of whom were families that received pat­ ents of nobility from the Hapsburgs. The new creations began in 1760 with Pompeo Neri, the advisor of the Regency from the 1740s, and continued with such names as Bonfini, Bricchieri-Colombi, Dithmar von Schmidweiller, Franqois, Fulger, Gavard des Privets, Hayre, Morali-Franchini, Seratti, Tavanti, and Tosi—all important functionaries of the bureaucracy in the mid-years of the century.18 But in general, the eighteenth-century Libri di Oro confirm that there had been a high de­ gree of continuity under the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dukes. The elite of the Republic had largely succeeded in preserving its consis­ tency. Before examining the implications of the emergence of new no­ bles in the eighteenth century and the demise of the older patricians, we shall turn to an important factor in the patricians' long survival—that is, their relationship to the administration of Tuscany under the six­ teenth to eighteenth-century dukes, and the way in which this relation­ ship evolved and changed. ,s

F

For the Bonfini, see A S F , Deputazione nobilta,

18, ins. 12-13; Schmidweiller,

Gavard des Privets, ins. 5; Tavanti,

F

F

F

19, ins. 14; Hayre,

21, ins. is; Tosi,

F

19, ins. 2; Frangois, F

F

18, ins. 113; Bricchieri-Colombi, F

19, ins. 10; Fulger,

18, ins. 5; Morali,

21, ins. 16.

6l

F

F

67, ins. 5;

43, ins. 10; Seratti,

F

63,

PART II

THE NEW BUREAUCRACY OF THE MEDICI DUKES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

The law of 1750 had defined the legal status of the patricians still largely in terms of the regulations that had once determined the admission of citizens to offices in the magistracies of the Florentine Republic. Officeholding had always been a chief privilege of the elite, and admission to the borse from which magistrates were selected was a difficult and complicated process. Under the Duchy, descendants of the fifteenthcentury officeholding group continued to be selected for the Senate, the Council of 200, and the rotating magistracies and provincial judge­ ships. But there was a fundamental change in the system of officehold­ ing as an increasing number of new permanent offices not reserved for citizens made their appearance. As the bureaucratization of the six­ teenth- to eighteenth-century ducal government advanced, the rela­ tionship of the patricians to political influence had changed accord­ ingly. The growth of bureaucracies in early modern Europe was a process by which central authority expanded through employment of an in­ creasing number of functionaries who absorbed the authority of fief holders, town corporations, estates, and other local bodies, establish­ ing the jurisdiction of the ruler over a larger area and on a more im­ mediate basis than previously. The process was a gradual one, which eventually produced the institutions and procedures of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century monarchy. But it was not entirely completed in the eighteenth century. In the classic definition of Max Weber, early mod­ ern bureaucracies were still in transition from a "patrimonial" to a "ra­ tional-legal" type, that is, from a situation in which functionaries were still essentially the servants of the ruler to one in which they became governed by the impersonal rules of the state. The bureaucratic state emerged in stages. In the early phases of its evolution, rulers under­ mined older forms of participation, centralized jurisdiction, created a more hierarchical relationship to authority, and employed a larger

PART II

number of permanent officials who were better trained and paid for state service, and who were also presumably more impersonal in ex­ ercising their duties. 1 But growing states were obliged to compromise with existing institutions and with the social groups over which they were establishing control. The officialdom of the new bureaucracies was part of the social context of state building, and in a stratified society it was difficult to escape the influence of family and group solidarity, which affected both the functioning of government and protected es­ tablished elites within the state's expanding authority. This was true of the Florentine patricians in their confrontation with the bureaucracy of the Medici dukes. Still, the Medici bureaucracy differed from the system of the Repub­ lic. Weber assumed that bureaucracies emerged out of feudal monar­ chies, but Florence had already possessed an evolved and complex sys­ tem of administration in the fifteenth century, which filled most of the functions of the ducal government without having its precise form. Its Renaissance origins gave the bureaucracy a distinct and precocious character in comparison with feudal monarchies of northern Europe. But in the fifteenth century, Florentines had held office for only brief terms, they were selected through a more open system than the office­ holders of the Duchy, and in the variety of different places in the mag­ istracies they might occupy over their lifetimes they remained more nearly private citizens than public functionaries. Besides its citizen magistrates, the Republic had also employed a subordinate semiper­ manent staff composed of chancellors, lawyers, and notai, which was relatively small in size, and was always subordinate to the councils and rotating magistracies. 2 The magistracies remained under the Duchy, ' For Weber's general discussion on the nature and development of bureaucratic gov­ ernment, see Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 324-407. Weber's general definition of bureaucracy has been adopted here; see Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber, 196-244. These characteristics include clear areas of administrative speciali­ zation, a definite hierarchy of authority, records, fixed rules, and trained, appointed, and permanent functionaries. It should be noted, however, that Weber, too, assumed the state to have been basically of "feudal" origin, and fails to take into account the significant ear­ lier development of bureaucratic procedure in Renaissance city states. -1 The fullest treatment of the Republican staff is in Marzi, Cancellerta, and in Guidi, Il governo delta citta-repubblica dt Firenze. Despite differences of emphasis and interpretation, others seem to agree that the lesser staff of the Republic was relatively small; see Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 128-39, and Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, passim.

FROM MAGISTRATES TO F U N C T I O N A R I E S

but the staff of permanent functionaries grew in size and influence around them until it predominated. These men reinforced the authority of the dukes, tightened central control over the outlying areas of Florentine territory, and helped to develop new habits of order and subordination to authority that outlasted the Medici and persisted through the eighteenth-century Hapsburg reforms into the nineteenth century. Thus gradually under the Duchy the modern state in Tuscany more clearly emerged. The Change in the Magistracies Essential to establishment of the new system was the process by which the first dukes changed the electoral procedures and evaded the constitutional checks on their prerogatives that had been embodied in the Reform of 1532. The Ottimati of the Medici faction of the elite at the end of the Republic had not aimed at the creation of a princely monarchy, but rather at a mixed government, like that of Venice, in which the duke would assure continuity of the regime but share power with a Senate and general council. "We will change the modes and customs of Florentine life very little," Donato Giannotti wrote in his Delia repubblicafiorentinain the 1530s, "as prudent architects . . . in remaking a house do not undo it entirely, but only the defective parts, rebuilding the others left whole." 3 Among the upper councils, the highest magistracy was a rotating committee of four senators, the Magistrato Supremo, which was intended to share the duke's executive and legislative powers, replacing the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia and priors of the Signoria. Two other magistracies remained from the Signoria: the twelve Buonuomini of the Collegio, who supervised the selection of citizens for offices, and the twelve Procuratori di Palazzo, six after 1545, who received petitions addressed to the Council of 200. In addition, the Signoria had employed a staff of two chanceries composed of secretaries and clerks, and another one for the Riformagioni. A fourth, under the notary of the Tratte, continued to administer drawings for office under the supervision of the Magistrato Supremo and Collegio.4 Besides these offices, two new councils, the Senate and Council of 200, in which members 3 4

Quoted in von Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica alprincipato, 152, n. 1. On the chanceries at the end of the Republic, see Marzi, Cancelleria, 278-334.

67

PART II

sat for life terms after nomination by the duke, had carefully defined electoral and deliberative powers. Accoppiatori from the Senate se­ lected the Magistrato Supremo. The Senate as a whole nominated cit­ izens for the lesser magistracies and provincial judgeships and was sup­ posed to approve laws, while the Council of 200 nominated further citizens for office and acted on petitions.3 Finally, the lesser magistra­ cies of the Republic survived the transition to the Duchy. These had de­ veloped from period to period in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and because they became the core of the new bureaucracy of the six­ teenth century, they need to be considered individually. As they existed after 1530, they can be grouped by function roughly into three areas: the law courts, the financial and public domain, and the general admin­ istration and central offices of control for the Florentine Dominion. The law courts had overlapping jurisdictions. They were staffed partly by trained jurists and partly by citizens. Different courts had competence in different areas, most of the magistracies in the finances and the general administration had independent jurisdiction, while some magistracies supervised others. In an effort to insure the impar­ tiality of civil justice, the Republic had long resorted to the employ­ ment of foreign, non-Florentine judges who could stand above private interests and factions in the city; the five justices of the Ruota, the civil tribunal that had replaced the old Podesta and Capitano del Popolo in ι $02, were foreigners appointed by the priors for three-year terms. The Ruota had original jurisdiction in the city of Florence, and it had ap­ pellate jurisdiction over the Podesta and Vicari of towns in the Contado. Criminaljustice belonged to the Otto di Guardia e Balia, which had originated in 1378 and was a committee of eight citizens who ro­ tated in office for four-month terms. The Otto had been the police arm of the Republic and was one of the most feared magistracies of the fif­ teenth century, being sometimes compared to the Council of Ten of Venice. Its citizens were charged with the maintenance of public order. Theirjurisdiction also extended outward into the Dominion through the Podesta and Vicari of provincial towns. The Mercanzia, with six 5

On the functions of the Senate and Council of 200, see "Ordinazioni fatte dalla re-

pubblica Fiorentina insieme con l'excellentia del Duca Alessandro De Medici . . . 27 aprile 1532," in Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, 1, 5-17; ^SFTratte, F noi, 34f., Consulta, F

454 "Magistrati di Firenze," first part, ins. 11; Prunai, Firenze, 72; Anzilotti, Costitu-

zione interna, 25-40.

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

citizens chosen from a special borsa made up from the guilds, was the commercial court, while the Onesta, a committee of eight, had juris­ diction over certain petty cases regarding morals. These were the chief regular courts of the city, but most of the other magistracies also had judicial authority in particular areas, and two, the Sindaci of the Ruota and Conservatori di Leggi, both with eight citi­ zens, reviewed and supervised the other tribunals. The Sindaci re­ viewed the conduct of the justices of the Ruota annually, while the Conservatori di Leggi, from 1429, exercised a type of ombudsmanship, hearing appeals of administrative acts and supervising the pro­ vincial justices. Finally, two magistracies, with four and five citizens, the Soprastanti and Buonuomini of the Stinche, maintained the Flor­ entine prison.6 There was a similar complexity in the financial administration, which was very advanced for its day. Here, the central and most im­ portant place was occupied by the ufficiali of the Monte Comune. From 1343 this magistracy was composed of ten citizens charged with the public debt who served for six-month terms and, along with the camarlinghi of the Camera del Comune, had controlled the financial administration of the Republic. The Camera del Comune was chiefly responsible for payments and receipts of the treasury. In addition, three magistracies governed the indirect taxes: four ufficiali of the Gabella del Sale, the salt tax; three ufficiali of the Gabella dei Contratti, the tax on notarized contracts; and four ufficiali of the Dogane, the system of tolls. Four men controlled the Decima, the property tax, which in 1494 had replaced the Republican Catasto of 1427. In fact, the Decima was ad­ ministered by three offices: the magistracy of the Vendite, which pros­ ecuted tax cases, and the Prestanze and Decima properly speaking, which were charged with assessment and collection of the tax. These were the chief fiscal offices, but three further magistracies had a periph­ eral relationship to the finances. Eight citizens, who served for terms of three years, directed the Monte di Pieta, the charitable loan fund that had originated in 1495. Eight citizens served as the Capitani di Parte 6 On the magistracies in the fourteenth and at the beginning of the fifteenth century in general, see Guidi, Il Govemo delta citta-repubblica di Firenze. There are further summary notices in Prunai, Firenze, 46-91; ASF, Tratte, F 1101, Manoscritti, F 843, "Magistrature Diverse," and Consulta, F 454. On the law courts, see G. Antonelli, "La magistratura," 3-39; Pansini, "La ruota fiorentina," 533-79.

PART II

Guelfa. These remained from the party organization of the fourteenth century, but were now chiefly occupied with the administration of the property of criminals confiscated by the state and with other public property. Finally, six citizens rotated in office as Ufficiali di Torre e Fiumi. With the Capitani di Parte, they provided for the upkeep of build­ ings, roads, bridges, and waterways in the public domain.7 The remaining magistracies were concerned with general adminis­ tration in the city, or with the control exercised by Florence over the provincial towns. Committees of eight and five citizens, respectively, governed the Abbondanza and the Grascia, provisioning magistracies for the supply of the city's grain, meat, and other foodstuffs, and for the supervision of its markets. The Magistrato dei Pupilli—since 1384 composed of five citizens—looked after the property of minors of elite families whose parents had died before they reached maturity and who became wards of the court. The Sanita, which had evolved from an ear­ lier office during the plague of 1527, met in years of crisis to enforce health regulations.8 The Abbondanza, Grascia, Pupilli, and Sanita were concerned chiefly with Florence and its immediate territory. For the control exercised over the more distant towns of the territorial state, the Otto di Pratica and Cinque Conservatori del Contado were of chief importance. The Otto di Pratica, composed of eight citizens, was the committee of security that replaced the Dieci di Balia of 1380, the Ten of War, in times of peace and provided for defense throughout Floren­ tine territory. The Cinque Conservatori del Contado supervised taxa­ tion of the territorial state from 1419 and adjudicated disputes between towns.9 The magistracies were an important legacy to the Duchy. Adminis­ tration through a system of rotating committees had extended to every level of the Republican government, from the priors of the Signoria down through the law courts, the finances, and the general administra­ tion, the guilds, and the Operai of churches, hospitals and charitable foundations. The line between a public and private sector is difficult to draw. Through such rotating committees, the Republic had provided 1

For the finances, besides the above, see Canestrini, ha scienza e I'arte; Pagnini, Delia

decima e di varie altregrauezze, 1; Pampaloni, "Cenni stonci sul Monte di Pieta," 525-60. 8

Prunai, Firenze, 56, 58-59. On the Otto and Cinque, see Guidi, Governo, 11, 203-23; in, 175-77; and ASF , Consulta, F 454, second part, ins. 1 -3. 9

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

for a sharing of influence, participation, and accountability within the citizen group. Fifteenth-century Florentine writers held that a rela­ tively broad participation in office was appropriate to the preservation of Florentine liberty.10 In extraordinary circumstances, authority be­ longed to especially delegated commissions, the Balie, but in ordinary circumstances, under the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia and priors of the Signoria, individual magistracies had considerable autonomy. Partic­ ularly important were the Monte Comune, which stood for the bank­ ers of the city; the Otto di Guardia, the police power; and the Otto di Pratica, for war and defense. The problem of continuity inherent in the frequent change of citizens in office was compensated for by a staging of terms in the magistracies, by electoral controls that affected the com­ position of the officeholding group, and by the small continuing staff. The electoral controls were further refined and strengthened in favor of the patrician elite by the reform of 1532, which reserved certain key of­ fices in the magistracies for members of the Senate and Council of 200 and foresaw that others would be filled by nomination from the borse of eligible citizens by the two councils before the final drawings by lot.11 The dukes preserved the outward form of the magistracies, and in­ deed created new rotating committees that took their places alongside the older ones. A type of collegial administration continued into the eighteenth century. Still, it is important to distinguish clearly between rotating committees, boards on which members served permanently, and bureaus composed of permanent staff and headed by a single man. The Ruota with its foreign judges, and the Tratte and Riformagioni with their single notaries or secretaries, were not citizen committees but rather boards or bureaus, and in 1549 the Sanita was converted from a rotating committee into a permanent board. A list of positions in the central administration in 1551, when the reforms carried out by Cosimo I were partly accomplished, describes 142 rotating offices in committees filled by citizens for brief terms, 23 in the upper councils between the Magistrato Supremo, Buonuomini, and Procuratori di Pa­ lazzo, 47 in the law courts, 45 in the finances, and 27 in the general and provincial administration. In 1552 Cosimo I created a new submagisIO

See Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance,

entine Constitutionalism," 442-62. " Cantim, Legislaztone Toscana, 1, 12-13, 16.

I,

418-39; Rubinstein, "Flor­

PART II

tracy in the Monte Comune of two Soprassindaci to audit accounts.12 In 1559 the Otto di Pratica and Cinque Conservatori del Contado were combined into a single new magistracy, the Nove Conservatori del Dominio Fiorentino, with nine rotating citizens, and when the Archivio della Camera was created in 1569 as an archive for the protocols of notai, it was put under the direction of a committee of three.13 By the time of another list of offices drawn up under Cosimo's second succes­ sor, Ferdinando I, in 1604, the number of places in magistracies had de­ creased slightly to 135. These continued with relatively few changes through the seventeenth century; the number was 115 under Cosimo III in 1695, and 115 under the last Medici duke, Gian Gastone, in 1736. Yet only the outward form of the Republican system survived into the seventeenth century, for the first dukes undermined the autonomy of the magistracies and reduced them to routine tasks. Cosimo I was the true architect of the new system. His authority grew partly out of the constitutional prerogatives given to the first Duke Alessandro De Medici in 1532, and partly out of circumstances of war and threat of disorder that made extension of his powers seem necessary to preserve the security of the city. But Cosimo guaranteed the privileges of the officeholding group and proceeded cautiously. One is reminded of Machiavelli's advice in The Prince that rulers of civil principalities should free themselves from the nobles who brought them to power and from dependence on the established magistrates, while still being careful not to assert independent authority too rapidly.14 It was not un­ til the reign of Cosimo's two sons and successors, Francesco I and Ferdinando I, that the new procedures of the regime became fully elabo­ rated. Still, from his first years Cosimo promulgated laws in his own name and that of the Magistrato Supremo alone, referring to the Senate only in particular instances.15 He then introduced his own men into the magistracies and the subordinate staff, who gave him cognizance of their deliberations and control over the entire administration. Symptomatic of the duke's new authority was the change in the elec­ toral procedures. In 1532 Alessandro De Medici had been empowered to appoint new senators and members of the Council of 200. He also 12

ASF, Inventario, Soprassindaci, preface.

13

Cantmi, Legislazione Toscana, VII, 11-13.

' 4 Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 9, "Of the Civic Principality." ,s

Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 25-40, 50-53.

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

appointed the Capitani of fortresses, officials of the Bande, the militia, and he filled certain other positions previously filled by the Signoria. But the Reform of 1532 had anticipated that the Senate and Council of 200 would have a dominant role in the selection of citizens for the mag­ istracies. This was to operate partly through reservation of offices for members of the two councils, and partly through nomination of names from the borse by Accoppiatori in the Senate before the final sortitions. The four members of the Magistrato Supremo were always to be sen­ ators, as were one or more of the Buonuomini, Procuratori di Palazzo, Conservatori di Leggi, Otto di Guardia, Otto di Pratica, and Capitani di Parte, while additional offices in these and other magistracies were designated for the Council of 200. The Accoppiatori in the Senate were to choose the Magistrato Supremo; the Senate as a whole preselected the Otto di Guardia, Otto di Pratica, Conservatori di Leggi, Capitani di Parte, and Ufficiali of the Monte Comune, as well as the Capitani of the larger towns of the Dominion. Preselection of other magistrates and provincial officials belonged to the Council of 200. 16 Cosimo intervened in the selection of magistrates by the appoint­ ment of citizens a mano, through the Magistrato Supremo. Selection a mano had already been a practice of the Republic. But in the sense understood in the fifteenth century, it had been a preselection of men by Accoppiatori from the borse before the more discrete final drawings by lot, as continued to be done for many offices after 1532. 17 The inter­ vention of the duke involved a further a mano process, which substi­ tuted appointment among the preselected candidates by the duke and Magistrato Supremo for the final drawings by lot. The progressive in­ troduction of this change is illustrated in Table 4.1, which shows the number of men selected during a year in 1551 and 1604. Offices in the magistracies continued to be reserved for members of the councils or eligible citizens, and the number of places available was 142 in 1551 and 135 in 1604. Considering the brief terms in office, from 286 to 274 in­ dividuals would be selected yearly. As anticipated in 1532, fully a third of the places were filled by men from the Senate and Council of 200, and thus by a relatively restricted group. Nineteen places in seven mag16

SeeCantini, Legislazione Toscana, 1, 12-13, and 118-22, for the reconfirmation of the

privileges of the councils at the accession of Cosimo 1. For details of the electoral proce­ dures, see Pansini, "Le segreterie nel principato Mediceo," 9-23. 17

Rubinstein, Government of Florence, 30-52.

SUBTOTAL

90

120

SUBTOTAL

18 22

22

Stinche (9, 4-6M)

24

9

18

24

12

8

9

Mercanzia (6, 4M)

6

3

12

32

32

CIT

24

24

8

20

8

12

200

1551

Oncsta (8, 4M)

Archivio (1604, 3, IY)

Conservatori di Legge (1551 8, 4M; 1604, 6 M )

Smdaci della Ruota (8, IY)

Otto di Guardia (8, 4M) 3

28

80

Proc di Palazzo (6, 6M)

24

4 4

12

Buonuomini (12, 3M)

SEN

20

OFF

DUCAL

4

80

12 76

32

83

108

123

12

10

8

18

18 22

18 22 12

18

58

10

24

I

65

12

3

24

2

6

24 6

80

12

48

20

A

6 6

s

24

I

15

1

15

32

32

CIT

24

1

3

1

3

20

8

12

200

1604

24

3

24

8

8

24

24

24

28

4

12

48

4

20

SEN

20

4

OFF

48

16

s A

APPOINTMENT,

1551-1604 (number of men selected in a year)

BY S O R T I T I O N A N D

20

Law Courts

MAGISTRACIES

SENATORS, T H E C O U N C I L OF 2 0 0 A N D CITIZENS AT LARGE,

48

AMONG

Magistrate Supremo (5, 3M)

Upper Councils

TABLE 4 . 1

D I S T R I B U T I O N O F OFFICES IN T H E F L O R E N T I N E

51

46

286

I

189

19

3

6 48

238

3

I

2

26

25

2

8

4

3 8?

8? 4

2

4

4

274

32

18

5

4

5

39

10

*

Rounded

KFY. OFF = Offices, SEN = Senators; 200 = C o u n c i l o f 200; S = Sortion, A = Ducal appointment; M = M o n t h s ; Y =

8

6

I

6

2

52

Years

4

173

24

12

5

4

84

7

4

3

19

3 34

2

8

4

4

4

4

4 6

6

190

25

18

I

4

2

20

7

2

4

2*

2* 4

4 3*

2

2

50

SOURCE D ' A d d a r i o , " B u r o c r a z i a , " 3 9 4 - 4 2 1 , B N F , Manoscritti Palatmo, 7 5 6 , y4SF, Tratte, F I I O I ; Manoscntti, F 2 8 3

TOTAL

SUBTOTAL

1

2

3

5

Cinque del Contado ( 1 5 5 1 , 5, IY)

1

6

9

8

Otto di Pratica (1551, 8, 6M)

31

5

Grascia (5, IY)

Nove Conservatori del Dom. (1604, 9, 6M)

5 8?

Pupilli (5, IY)

Abbondanza ( 1 5 5 1 , 8?; 1604, 4, IY)

4

48

4

3

55

SUBTOTAL

1

29

3

Capitani di Parte (10, IY)

General Administration

10

4 4

3

4 10

Zecca (4, IY)

4 4

4

Dogana (4, IY) 2

4

Decima (Vendite) (4, IY)

6

4

3*

4

4

6

6

6

20

4

4

4

4

Gabella del Sale (4, IY)

Gabella dei Contratti (3, 6M) 4

3*

20 3*

20 3*

Monte DI Pietà (8, 3Y)

Monte Comune ( 1 5 5 1 , 10, 6M; 1604, 4, 2M, 2 perm)

Finances

PART II

istracies out of twenty were reserved for senators in 1551, and this number increased by the end of the century to twenty-four positions in fifteen committees out of twenty-two, while twenty-two places in 1551 and nineteen in 1604 were reserved for the Council of 200. The terms in office were such that each senator would be expected to serve at least one term in the magistracies during the year, and he might also occupy an office for a term in the provinces. Thus the Senate became an officeholding and administrative rather than deliberative body. Year after year, and day after day in the week, the senators made their rounds of offices as the inner group of magistrates, a function they continued to exercise into the eighteenth century. These new arrangements, and particularly ducal appointments, were decisive changes in the old process of sortition. The participation of Florentines in office, on a broader, more open, and partly random ba­ sis, was disappearing. Magistrates were now chosen from above, and Cosimo might dismiss and reelect an entire committee, as was done with the once independent Otto di Guardia e Balia in 1558 when it im­ prudently proceeded to act against an official of the Court. 18 In 1551 ducal appointment extended to thirty-four positions in nine commit­ tees out of twenty-one, and under Cosimo's successors the system of appointment was further extended. In 1595, under Ferdinando I, ducal appointment a mano engulfed the Buonuomini of the Collegio, thus making it easier for the duke to intervene in the election of new citi­ zens. 19 By 1604 appointment a mano extended to eighty-eight positions in seventeen of the committees out of twenty-two, leaving only the Mercanzia, Onesta, Gabella del Sale, Gabella dei Contratti, and Dogana to be selected by lot in the accustomed manner. By this point twothirds of the magistrates were appointed by the duke, and although these men were still technically citizens made eligible through the scru­ tinies, total newcomers could be made eligible for offices ex nuovo if the occasion demanded. To some, selection a mano seemed a guarantee of more effective gov­ ernment, and indeed, the first dukes established a reputation for the ef­ fectiveness of their rule. As the Venetian ambassador, Andrea Gussoni, reported in 1576: "Since the magistrates know that their acts are over" Lapini, Diario Florentine, 120. Ig

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xiv, 136.

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

seen and are often examined by the Prince, out of fear of infamy or pun­ ishment they administer justice with a proper openness."20 Under Ferdinando I, the lists of candidates prepared by the secretary of the Tratte provided precise indications of the qualifications of the men being pro­ posed. As was observed in a new summary of the regulations of the Tratte in 1595: "Selection by lot, never used by the ancient Romans and decried by reputable authors, is thus corrected, improved, and ordered, so that judgment is not governed by chance, but chance by judg­ ment."21 However, ducal appointment narrowed the group of citizens in office, and left many who had had access to office under the Republic without access to influence. The sixteenth-century dukes governed with the participation of a select part of the patrician group. Discontent in the last years of Cosimo broke out in the rapidly suppressed Pucci conspiracy of 1572. The prospect of advancement, even among wellestablished citizens, for men who were not brought to attention by sen­ ators, the ducal secretaries, or the Court was dim. Further offices of less difficult attainment, it is true, were available outside of Florence among the places filled by Florentines in the provincial towns. These pro­ vincial offices will be considered separately. The Permanent Functionaries

Ultimately the Medici depended less on the Senate, the Council of 200, and the magistracies than on men chosen initially mostly outside of the patrician group, who became the permanent officials of the new re­ gime. The Medici had begun to make use of their own agents in the government of the city after their restoration in 1512—men such as Goro Gheri and Silvio Passerini, the cardinal of Cortona.22 Later, among the councillors of Alessandro De Medici in the 1530s were Car­ dinal Innocenzio Cybo and Francesco Campana, who had experience in the administration and diplomacy of Rome under Clement VII and had been sent to Florence with the Medici restoration, in the hope that they would help to secure the young duke's position in the city.23 Un­ der Cosimo, the consolidation of ducal authority was entrusted to a succession ofjurists able to find their way through the tangle of Repub20

Seganzzi, ed., Ambasciatori veneti, m-i, 221.

21

ASF, Tratte, P h o i , 11.

22

On these, see Stephens, Fall of the Florentine Republic, 147(., i66f.

23

Spini, Cosimo De Media, 14-15.

PART II

lican legislation and able to define a new area of ducal jurisdiction. Lawyers were the technicians of sixteenth-century statecraft, and in Florence their importance increased quite noticeably under the first dukes. The appearance of some of these new men has been studied by A. Anzilotti.24 By 1560 six new offices had acquired a special impor­ tance: the duke's first secretary, or Auditore della Camera; the Auditore della Giurisdizione; the Auditore Fiscale; the secretary or Auditore of the Riformagioni; the Depositario Generale; and the Soprassindaco of the Nove Conservatori del Dominio. They sat as members of a new council, the Pratica Segreta, which at first had irregular composition but gradually acquired responsibilities, particularly for the Dominion, that were distinct from the Magistrato Supremo. The Pratica became a council of the duke's chief agents and provided for his private control of the central administration as a whole. The change began under Alessandro De Medici in the 1530s before Cosimo's accession. In 1532 one of the justices of the Ruota, Lelio Torelli, a lawyer from Fano who had been employed previously by Clem­ ent VII in the administration of the Papal States, was made Auditore della Giurisdizione to deal with problems related to the Church.25 Cosimo retained Alessandro's first secretary, Francesco Campana, replac­ ing him on his death in 1546 with Torelli, who thus, besides being Auditore della Giurisdizione, also became the first secretary and Auditore della Camera. In this office he was the duke's councillor for matters of justice and grace, a position well above the lesser secretaries of the household who were in attendance for correspondence and special business. There were ten secretaries in 1551. The Auditore della Ca­ mera became the duke's chief agent in the resolution of judicial appeals. Torelli was also a figure of great influence in the city. He was one of the founders of the Accademia Fiorentina, edited the Florentine manu14

Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 41-53 et passim. For a more recent discussion, see

Diaz, Ilgranducatodi Toscana, 85-103. 25

On the origins of the Pratica Segreta and another informal parallel council of about

1550, see Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 167-95; on Torelli, see ibid., 158-59. On Quistelli, see Conti [de Comitibus], "Relationum," 11, 76, 111. For other early members of the Pratica, see Francesco Vinta in ibid., 117; De Nobili in ASF, Guardaroba, F 50, 110; and Benvenuti m ASF, Magistrate Supremo, P 4310, 24.

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

script of the Pandects of Justinian, and was made a senator in 1571, five years before his death. 26 Two otherjurists attained a particular importance in the 1540s: Jacopo Polverini, a lawyer from Prato, the Auditore Fiscale; and Antonio Quistelli, a lawyer from Modigliana, the Auditore of the Capitani di Parte Guelfa and of the Conservatori di Leggi.Jacopo Polverini also be­ gan his career as an Auditore of the Ruota. He had occupied the Re­ publican office of secretary of the Riformagioni at the time of Cosimo's accession, was made the Auditore Fiscale in 1543, and later Auditore and permanent secretary of the Magistrato Supremo. 27 As secretary of the Riformationi he was the custodian of the archive of privileges and statutes of the Republic, an important weapon in the control of the provinces. He was also the ducal representative in the Senate. As the Auditore of the Magistrato Supremo, he served as the legal secretary of this council, especially because by the 1550s it was becoming an ex­ traordinary court of equity, attracting certain civil cases from the reg­ ular courts for the duke's own arbitration. As the Auditore Fiscale, Pol­ verini directed the new bureau of the fisc. He was responsible for the law of 1549 that revived the crime of Iesa maesta, a legal weapon by which Cosimo controlled opposition within the city. 28 The Auditore Fiscale controlled criminal justice. He sat as a member of the Pratica Segreta, later assumed control of the Otto di Guardia 1 and intervened ex officio in

the Onesta, Gabella del Sale, Gabella dei Contratti, and Dogana. He also assisted in the direction of the Farine, a new bureau from

1552 that administered a ducal tax on mills. Antonio Quistelli succeeded Polverini as the Auditore Fiscale in !555. while Francesco Vinta, a lawyer from Volterra, became the Auditore of the Riformagioni and the Magistrato Supremo. Antonio Da Subbiano, another lawyer, was employed in 1543 as Auditore of the Bande, and thus became the justice for matters regarding the ducal mi­ litia. 29 In the Capitani di Parte, Quistelli had been charged with the col­ lection of fines due to the fisc and the administration of the property of rebels. In the Conservatori di Leggi, he was at first the duke's repre26

Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 158-59.

27

Ibid., 44.;J. Conti, "Relationum," 76.

28

On the Riformationi and Fisco, see Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 41-53, 131, 155;

ASF, Consulta, F 454, first part, ins. 3-4. 29

On Da Subbiano, see J. Conti, "Relationum," 222.

PART II

sentative in resolving petitions appealing administrative acts generally. But by the 1560s this control was assumed by Lelio Torelli as Auditore della Camera, and the Conservatori di Leggi became occupied instead with those cases of the poor that were presented to the duke rather than to the ordinary courts.30 Where the Auditori did not intervene in the magistracies directly, assessori legali were introduced as a further means for controlling the jurisdictions of the magistracies. By the time of Ferdinando I the Auditori exercised a consultative rather than final opinion in the deliberations of the Nove Conservatori del Dominio, Pupilli1 Monte Comune, and Monte di Pieta. Along with the Auditori, two other officials sat regularly in the Pratica Segreta. The new Depositario Generale, in the person of Ottaviano De Medici, appeared in 1537 as the treasurer of Cosimo's assignment of public revenue, and the importance of this office increased as the du­ cal assignment grew.31 In 1559 the Otto di Pratica and Cinque Conservatori del Contado were joined into a single new magistracy, the Nove Conservatori del Dominio Fiorentino, which became the chief office for the administration of the Dominion. The three senators and six cit­ izens of the Nove, all appointed a mano, had, besides their ordinary staff, a Soprassindaco who sat ex officio in the Pratica Segreta. He be­ came the link between the Pratica and the rotating magistrates of the Nove of whom he, in effect, assumed direction.32 The proweditori of different magistracies, who continued from the Republican staff, were generally responsible for the management of day-to-day economic matters and assumed a special importance in the new hierarchy of com­ mand. They became the chief responsible staff members in many of­ fices. In 1559 Filippo Dell'Antella, the Provveditore of the Monte Co­ mune, attended the meetings of the Pratica Segreta.33 Giovanbattista Gianfigliazzi, the Provveditore of the Grascia, sat as a member of the Pratica later under Ferdinando I.34 Finally, although he was never a member of the Pratica, the secretary 3°

On the Auditore of the Conservatori di Leggi, see Anzilotti, Costituzione interna,

113-18; D'Addario, "Notedi storia," 140-47. 51

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, 1, 118-22.

12

For the foundation of the Nove, see ASF, Leggi [Raccolta Tavanti], Affari di eco-

nomia civica dal 1545 al 1777,

V,

ins. 4.

33

Anzilotti, Costituzione interna, 175.

34

ASF, Manoscritti,

F

223, 8.

FROM MAGISTRATES TO F U N C T I O N A R I E S

of the Tratte acquired new responsibilities. In the middle years of the century the secretary was Ser Giovanni Conti, a notary from the pro­ vincial town of Bucine. He continued to keep the records of the Tratte and was occupied with the extractions of citizens for offices, but he now also prepared lists of names for the appointments a mano and be­ came important in filling lesser offices, receiving the petitions of placeseekers, noting the claims of each applicant, and drawing up lists of names for the consideration of the ducal secretaries, the Magistrato Su­ premo, and the duke. 3 5 These men took their places above and alongside the senators and magistrates, acting to control, if not entirely centralize, the Republican administration from the top. The appearance of the Auditori gave rise to a long-lasting quarrel of precedence with the Senate that was provi­ sionally concluded in 1588 when the Auditori assumed precedence over senators in all magistracies except the Magistrato Supremo. 3 6 But the dukes also transformed the lesser staff of the Republic. Since the four­ teenth century and before, this had grown in size as Florentine territory expanded, and as the volumes of letters, official acts, deliberations, and accounts to be compiled annually grew. These offices had ranged in importance from the chancellors of the Signoria and Riformagioni, through the camarlinghi, ragionieri, scrivani, and notai of the law courts, finances, and general administration, to a large number of menial un­ derlings: porters, guards, messengers, and custodians. It is difficult to estimate the precise number of these offices in the fifteenth century, but a printed and incomplete list from the last period of the Republic de­ 37 scribes nearly a hundred. In 1530 the offices in Florence itself, filled through the Tratte, included fifteen provveditori, two sottoprovveditori, nine camarlinghi, two ragionieri, twenty-four scrivani, and thirty-one HOfiJ!. 3 8

Such men had helped to provide for the continuity of the Republican 35

See the registers of "Suppliche informate" and of "Note ed informazioni" in ASF,

Tratte. 36 37

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, χπ, 287-88. BNF, no author, "Magistral della Citta di Firenze" (n.d., but from the period 1480-

1530). There is information about individual offices in the fifteenth century and before, but without much indication of the total number involved, in Marzi, Cancelleria, and in Guidi, Govemo delta citta-repubblka di Firenze. 38

For 1530, see ASF, Tratte, F 85. 8l

PART II

government, although many of them had held office on as temporary a basis as the citizen magistrates. Some offices were filled through sortition for brief periods from the ordinary borse of citizens, or from the borse of citizen notai. Others were filled through a mixed system of nomination and sortition by the councils or the Signoria, and the officeholders chosen initially for brief terms of two or three years might continue in office for quite extended periods. Bartolommeo Scala remained through successive renewals in office as first chancellor of the Signoria from his first appointment in April 1465 until his death in 1497. Machiavelli, who was initially appointed for a two-year term, served continuously in the second chancery from 1498 until 1512.39 Some of the lesser offices had required special technical qualifications. The camarlinghi, the treasurers for the casse of different magistracies, were obliged to pledge sizeable sums of surety with the Monte Comune. The notaries or lawyers required for many positions had become a special group. Notaries were subject to the regulation and examination of the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, and lawyers were required to complete a course of legal studies. Lawyers had gained in importance during the fifteenth century. They helped to rationalize administrative procedures and to make the legal training of officeholders seem important for the sake of administrative efficiency.40 The extension of ducal appointment to the lesser staff can be followed through the registers of intrinsici of the Archive of the Tratte. These contain the names of men selected for brief terms by sortition, and although many lesser offices did not pass through this channel in 1530, twenty-five provveditori, camarlinghi, or ragionieri attached to fifteen magistracies can be followed incumbent after incumbent up to the 1560s, when most of them had become appointments for indefinite terms in the name of the duke. Of the original twenty-five positions, eleven became permanent appointments in the 1530s, six were converted during the 1540s, and four more before 1555, while two offices were suppressed, leaving only the camarlinghi of the Prestanze and Pu39 Note the electoral procedure for the chanceries of the Signoria in Marzi, Cancelleria, 291-99. On individuals in the chanceries of the Signoria, see Witt, Hercules at the Crossroads; A. Brown, Bartolommeo Scala; Rubinstein, "The Beginnings of Niccolo Machiavelh's Career," 72-91. 4 ° Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 11—61.

82

FROM MAGISTRATES TO FUNCTIONARIES

pilli to be extracted through the Tratte yearly into the 1560s.41 Ducal appointment was exercised for the lesser offices partly through the sub­ stitution of ducal candidates for the men extracted from the borse. Thus, from a survey of offices prepared at the end of the 1540s, we find that the Camarlingo of the Monte Comune was selected "by tratta, he enters [office] on the first of March for four months . . . and does not exercise . . . Carlo di Simone Lenzoni serves for the one extracted, and has been [in office] since 1536." In the Dogana, "the chancellor is ex­ tracted for a year . . . and does not exercise because there is Ser Giovanbatista Quarantotti from Montecatini." In the Gabella dei Contratti, "the camarlingo per tratta . . . does not exercise . . . the substitute is Bastiano del Pace elected in 1534."42 This was a further step in the es­ tablishment of ducal control and a means for exercising patronage. With the decreasing ability of the magistrates to resolve matters inde­ pendently, a larger amount of business was absorbed by the lesser staff. Francesco Buontalenti, the Provveditore of the Fisco, wrote in re­ sponse to an inquiry of 1576: "For some years now, the business of this office has grown to such an extent that besides the usual accountant, I have kept another youth and one of my sons; otherwise it would not have been possible to keep everything in order."43 And indeed, as the procedures of the regime developed, the number of lesser functionaries grew steadily. 41 In the Capitani di Parte, Monte Comune, Prestanze, Dogana, Sale, Gabella dei Contratti, Torri, Grascia, Cinque del Contado, Pupilli, Vendite, and Conservatori di Leggi; see ASF, Tratte, F 85, 3, 31, 34-41, 61, 114-24, 137. 42 BNF, Manoscritti Palatino, 756, 57, 82, 92. The salariati of the duke for 1543 include the names of these and other men appointed directly; see ASF, Manoscritti, F 321,

17-21. " ASF, Misc. Med.,

F

27, ins. 13, 734f., dated 20 July 1576.

THE EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

The general trend in the increase in number of functionaries can be fol­ lowed through lists of offices and officeholders that were drawn up at different times by the officials of the Tratte. The amount of paper that remains from the ducal bureaucracy is enormous, and through two and a half centuries the secretaries of the Tratte created a large archive con­ cerning appointments. From time to time they also prepared general surveys of the bureaucracy for internal use, as a record of the means by which offices were filled. These lists are revealing documents because they describe offices in the central administration at different dates and provide the names of officeholders and information about fees and sal­ aries. They begin with three surveys prepared under Cosimo I. One is in two versions for the years between 1546 and 1550, made by Ser Tommaso Petrini, the third chancellor of the Tratte under Giovanni Conti;1 a second, anonymous list dates from 1551, and a third from 1561.2 A detailed list dated "1604, a Giugno," describes the central bu­ reaucracy under Ferdinando I in the first years of the seventeenth cen­ tury.3 In addition, two very detailed and complete lists exist for the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, which reveal the state of the bureaucracy under Cosimo III and the last Medici duke, Gian Gastone; 1 B N F , Manoscritti Palatino, 756, "Tutti e mag / della citta e uffitti di fuora de quali parte ne da a mano Sua Ecc / e parte se ne tragghono, distinti per ordine secondo Ie dignita di ciaschuno de quelh con h sua ministri, salan et altre cosc a pie di ciascheduno di essi annotate secondo l'ordine della nuova riforma . . . [di Tommaso Petrini]." The names reflect the composition of the bureaucracy c. 1546-51. This is an extended copy of Manoscritti Palatino, 757, an earlier version dedicated to Luigi di Piero Guiceiardini. 2 For 1551, see A S F Mediceo del Pnncipato, F 633, "Uffici e stato della citta di Firenze," pub. by D'Addario in "Burocrazia," 362-456. For 1560, see ASF, Guardaroba, F 50, "1561, Magistrati e ufizi della citta di Firenze." 1 A S F , Manoscntti, F 283, "1604, a Giugno, Magistrati della Citta di Firenze dati per tempo terminato da SAS ο cavati per tratta con Ie lor provisioni et ordme della precedenza."

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

they also contain series of names going back to the late sixteenth cen­ tury. The first was compiled by Niccolo Arrighi, the son and personal assistant of Senator Alamanno Arrighi, the secretary of the Tratte be­ tween 1677 and 1700 under Cosimo III. It contains both descriptions of offices and continuous series of names ending in 1695.4 The second ap­ pears to have been prepared in 1765, but it provides descriptions of of­ fices and the names of officeholders based on the acts of appointment for the years between 1695 and 1736.5 The lists are not entirely complete, for some magistracies are omit­ ted entirely for the years 1551 and 1604, as are offices in all the lists that were considered to have been positions of the ducal household and of the Court. Municipal offices in the provincial towns, offices in the State of Siena, officers of the Bande, and ambassadors are also missing. However, for the central offices in Florence some of these gaps can be bridged, thus making it possible to construct cross sections of the cen­ tral bureaucracy at these different dates.6 Table A. 1 in Appendix A groups magistracies and bureaus roughly by administrative function— the upper offices of state, the law courts, the finances, the general administration, and the central offices for the provincial administra4 A S F , Misc. Med., F 413 (previously F 696), "Teatro di Grazia e di Giustizia ovvero Formulario de Rescritti a tutte Ie cariche che conferisce il Ser. G. Duca di Toscana per via

del ufizio delle Tratte illustrato di varie notizie da Niceolo Arrighi. . . parte prima, che contiene gli ufizi e cariche della citta di Firenze"; F 414 (previously 697), ". . . parte seconda che contiene gli uffici e cariche per fuori della citta di Firenze." 5 A S F , Seg. Gab., F 123, in three parts "A: Ministero civile della citta di Firenze in tempo di Cosimo II, Gio. Gastone I, Granduchi di Toscana di G.M.; B: Relazione del governo civile dello stato di Firenze e di Siena . . . ; C: Ministero civile per lejusdicenze del Dominio Fiorentmo . . ." (n.d., dated 1765 in the inventory, but probably from the 1730s). 6 For 1 5 5 1 preference has been given to A S F , Mediceo del Principato, F 633, in the publication of D'Addario, which omits the lesser secretaries of state, the Pratica Segreta, Depositeria, Banca Militare, and Decima Ecclesiastica. The list for 1604 omits the lesser secretaries of state, the Riformagiom, Bande, Depositeria, Banca Militare, and Decima Ecclesiastica. For these years other positions, the Magona, Scrittoio delle Fortezze, Scrittoio delle Possessioni, Guardaroba, and Posta, which were apparently thought to be of­ fices of the Court, are not mentioned. This is true of the Scnttoio delle Possessioni and Guardaroba in 1695, and of the Guardaroba m 1736. The lesser secretaries of the duke have been taken from A SF, Manoseritti, F 321. The number of missing offices for 1551 and 1604 has been estimated, chiefly o n the basis o f A S F , Guardaroba, F 50, and B N F , Manoseritti Palatino, 756.

PART II

tion—and distinguishes offices by relative type and rank—rotating or permanent positions in the magistracies, higher-level permanent offices, such as auditori, segretari, or prouueditori, and permanent offices at an intermediary level, such as cancellieri, assessori, ragionieri, notai, and ajuti. Positions held ex officio have been counted as separate offices. The guilds, the Operai of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Order of St. Stephen, the Studio Fiorentino, and other offices in Florence of peripheral importance have been omitted from consideration.7 Definition of what comprised the bureaucracy depends on what magistracies the Tratte lists included consistently, and with time the view of the state became more inclusive. In the eighteenth century some offices that had earlier been Court positions are included. A large number of menial positions at the level of servants—custodi, donzelli, guardie, facchini, and tauolaccini—which were reported irregularly, have also been omitted. These included the famiglia of the Magistrato Supremo, the old ceremonial attendants of the priors of the Signoria, famigli of the Otto, and numerous ueditori, cassieri alle porte, and stradieri of the Dogana. 8 Their omission limits the field of vision realistically to the more important positions, at the level of scrivani or above—perhaps 40 percent of all those in the city that were paid from the public purse. In 1551, when the reforms of Cosimo I were partly accomplished, there were some 360 identified offices, of which 142 (two-fifths) were rotating places in magistracies and 218 were fixed places on boards or at an upper or intermediary level in the permanent staff. The relative completeness and consistency of reportage gives percentages a reasonable significance. Considering magistrates and functionaries together, the total number of offices increased by two-thirds between the midsixteenth and early eighteenth centuries. But as this happened, the number of rotating offices in magistracies decreased by about 20 percent, while the number of permanent offices more than doubled. The most rapid growth in permanent staff was in the late sixteenth century, with about a 60 percent increase in number of offices between 15 51 and 7

The Bigallo, which was a charitable hospital, and the magistracy of Or San Michele, a shrine near the center of the city that had some control over the central market, have been omitted from consideration in all the lists. 8 Lower-level officeholders were not reported consistently. There were more than 220 at this level in 1551, more than 392 in 1604, and more than 396 and 478 in 1695 and 1736. Many of these were menial employees of the Dogana.

86

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

1604. Another 40 percent increase took place by 1695, and another 20 percent by 1736. The change affected all branches of the administra­ tion, although it was less in the upper councils, in the law courts, and in the general administration than in the finances. In comparative per­ spective the Florentine bureaucracy appears to have been larger than the central bureaucracy of the Duchy of Milan at the end of the sixteenth century, but slightly smaller than the central bureaucracy of the dukes of Savoy at Turin in the early eighteenth century. The growth in num­ ber of offices may have been less rapid than in some parts of France, but the true point of comparison is with the system of the Republic and first years of the Duchy, from which there was clearly a change.9 The Upper Councils

The new functionaries at the top of the administrative hierarchy can be followed through the evolution of offices under the duke. Here much depended on circumstance, for under Cosimo and his two successors neither the Magistrato Supremo nor the Pratica Segreta served as a sin­ gle council of state, and in the minds of some contemporaries this made the Medici government seem quite arbitrary.10 Cosimo I guarded his own initiative and kept his small group of private councillors in the background. The Venetian ambassador, Vincenzo Fideli, reported his habits in 1561 as follows: In the morning at this time of year he always rises at dawn . . . and the first usually introduced is the Segretario di Criminale [the Auditore Fiscale] to whom all the crimes of the state are reported . . . of which the prince dis­ poses. . . . They say that after the criminal matters are resolved, the secretary for affairs of state enters [the Auditore della Camera, or another secretary] and if there are any letters he [the duke] opens them himself, and they are read first by him. . . . When his own business is concluded, he gives audience to ambas9

Chabod, "Stipendi nominali," 11, 187-363, lists some 150 offices, exclusive of pro­

vincial offices and Church benefices, for the vice-royal government of Milan in the 1590s, surely only a part of the Milanese administration. For Piedmont, Quazza, Le riforme in Piemonte, I, 94, estimates that there were some 1,639 royal officials at all levels in the first decades of the eighteenth century. For France, Mousnier, La venalite des offices, 106-14, estimates that the number of officials in Normandy, which is comparable m size to Tuscany, was about 1,800 in 1573 and had more than doubled to about 4,100 by 1665. 10

One English observer in the 1590s wrote, "The Government (to speake in one word,

and not to use a harder terme) is meerely Despoticall"; see Dallington, A Survey of the Great Duke's State of Tuscany, 39. OnDallington, see Crino', "Document! relativi."

PART II

sadors, nunzios, and other important persons . . . [and] . . . receives private persons, one by one, until the time to dine. . . . Then he passes petitions ofjustice and grace, and if there are any uncertain points on which he wants council . . . and he has many men of valor and wisdom . . . he sends the matter on which he wants an opinion to whom he wants under seal, and they respond in writing under seal. Thus business is resolved according to his own will, and it is never said the council has resolved, but the duke has deliberated a certain thing."

Cosimo stood above the Court, the Auditori, and his secretaries, while Francesco I, who was associated with his father's rule in ι $64 and succeeded on his death in 1574, withdrew to private diversions, giving more influence to his advisors. Andrea Gussoni reported to Venice in 1576: As for the management of affairs of state . . . he [Francesco] takes council in everything from the secretary Concino [Bartolommeo Concini, one of the sec­ retaries]. This man, . . . for his long practice with affairs, had already acquired a great authority under the prince's dead father . . . [which] . . . is not only maintained with the son, but is in a sense increased, so that one can truly say that this prince not only does nothing without his knowledge, but does not de­ termine anything different from his opinion. . . . He has a few other favorites . . . and among these principally Signor Giacomo Salviati, his kinsman. Still, this small number of councilors acts so that. . . affairs are conducted very se­ cretly.12

In 15 87, after he was suspected to have been poisoned by his morganatic wife Bianca Cappello, Francesco was succeeded by his brother Ferdinando De Medici, who marked a return to the style of Cosimo. Fran­ cesco Contarini reported about Ferdinando to Venice in 1589: Although the magistracies remain as in the time of the Republic, still they come to no decision . . . without knowing the intention of the Grand Duke, who regulates matters as he likes. He has no firm and determined council of state, only in some things he takes the council of Cardinal Dal Monte, the bishop of Pisa, of Camillo Dal Monte [the Commissario Generale of the Bande], and of Colonel Dovara, but then he makes his own decision, being of a lively wit, practiced in affairs, one might say brought up and nurtured in them.'3 " Segarizzi, Ambasciatori veneti, in-i, 151. 12 Ibid., 200. ,J Ibid., 111-2, 109.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

The Venetian residents clearly thought the dukes had an independ­ ence of action well beyond that of the doge of Venice. Ducal edicts were law, and under Cosimo they were countersigned by the Auditore della Camera, as first secretary, and published in the name of the Magistrato Supremo. The other secretaries, in what became the Segreteria di Stato, were occupied partly with internal administration and partly with foreign correspondence. They had a greater or lesser importance depending on personality and circumstance. Some, like Lorenzo Pagni, Giacopo Guidi, or Bartolommeo Concini, a provincial notary whose rise to influence began in the chancery of the Riformagioni in the 1540s, were often absent on diplomatic missions abroad, either with their own charges or in attendance on the ducal ambassadors.14 Giovanbatista Concini, the son of Bartolommeo, succeeded Lelio Torelli as Auditore della Camera in 1576, and he attained an influence with Francesco I equal to that of his father. He fell from favor as an intimate of the Court on the accession of Ferdinando I, but he continued to hold the office of Auditore della Camera until his death in 1605.15 Too much influence of such secretaries as the Concini may have caused Ferdinando I's division of responsibility in the Segreteria di Stato. In an instruction of November 1587 he named three principal secretaries, a first secretary, Piero Usimbardi, and two under-secretaries, Antonio Serguidi and Belissario Vinta. Responsibility was di­ vided among them for foreign correspondence, internal correspond­ ence, the government of Siena, mandates to the Depositeria, and appointments to offices through the Magistrato Supremo and the Tratte.16 Ferdinando also replaced Concini as Auditore della Camera by a Consulta of three permanent auditori for matters of justice and grace. This became a new high tribunal of much importance. The Consulta later handled judicial appeals from both Florence and Siena, re­ viewed the appointment of justices, and acquired a consultative opin­ ion in new legislation.17 14

ASF, Manoscritti, F 321; Del Pozzo, "Ambasciatori toscam," 57-106. On Giovanbatista Concmi, the father of Concino Concini of the Court of Marie De

Medici in France, see Litta, Famiglie celebri, 11, fasc. 14, andj. Conti, "Relationum," 56. 16

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xn, 10-12. On the division of responsibilities among

different secretaries, see Pansini, "Le segreterie nel principato Mediceo," xxiv-xlix. 17

J. Conti, "Relationum," 84-105, describes the Consulta as ajudicial tribunal, but ac­

cording to the Venetian ambassador, Francesco Badoer, in 1609, it was more nearly a sec-

PART II

The Magistrato Supremo continued to serve as a court for petitioners seeking direct ducal arbitration. Florentine citizens enjoyed zprivilegio delforo before this court. The Pratica Segreta continued as the council of Auditori and other key officials, and by 1604 both of these councils had absorbed a new volume of business. In 1551 the five senators of the Magistrato Supremo had been assisted by a permanent Auditore, a chancellor, and two coajutori. In 1588 they acquired a fourth chancellor, and in 1604 both the Auditore Fiscale and Auditore of the Riformagioni were attached as ex officio members. 18 The Pratica Segreta continued with the regular participation of the Auditore della Camera, Auditore Fiscale, Depositario, and Soprassindaco and two senators from the Nove. It acquired jurisdiction over the government of Pistoia and its Contado, ultimately over the group of detached ducal fiefs in the region of Lunigiana and Pontremoli north of the Republic of Lucca, over communal chancellors in the provincial towns, over licenses and privileges, and dispatched much other business through a regular secretary and his three assistants.19 In the sixteenth century the focus of the upper councils of state was the person of the duke, and the key officials of state had the task of exercising control in the duke's name over the lesser magistracies. There was a parallel hierarchy of control for the military forces of the Duchy, a militia called the Bande, which had developed from the Republican militia and was further reorganized by Cosimo I at the time of the war with Siena in the 1550s. The Bande were organized under captains of fortresses, and commanded by Commissari who were generally nobles of the Court, so that only two offices appear in the Tratte lists: the Auond Pratica: ". . . il Granduca Ferdmando introdusse poco prima della sua morte una reduzione d'uomini . . . come un collegio, nominato da lui la Consulta, e questo per sollevarsi dal fastidio d'aver a veder supphche e scritture de particolan . . . e in questo aveva introdotto il dottore Cavallo fiscale, il dottore Staldo, l'Usimbardi segretario di Stato, il dottore Encalandi, Bolognese, e per segretario il Corbolino . . . Ora a questa Consulta ha introdotto madama [the Duchess Christine of Lorraine, Regent for Cosimo II] che, oltre Ie supphche de' particolan, si portino anche altri negozi, appoggiando al parer d'essa Consulta molte cose delle quali non e ella molto ben capace"; see Seganzzi, Ambasciatori veneti, in—2, 166. 18 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xn, 58-59; ASF, Manoscntti, F 283, 28. On the changing jurisdiction of the Magistrato Supremo, seePansini, "Il Magistrato Supremo," 283-315'» ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 8, 43. 90

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

ditore of the Bande, who had jurisdiction over matters such as recruit­ ment, and the Banca Militare, the central paymaster.20 In the seventeenth century the highest officials under the duke exer­ cised a more regular collegial influence. The Segreteria di Stato grew in importance, and there began to be a regular Council of State. Ferdinando I died in 1609 and was succeeded by his son Cosimo II, a youth of nineteen who governed at first under a Council of Regency; he died in 1621. Ferdinando II also succeeded as a minor, occasioning forma­ tion of a second regency in which two dowager duchesses, Christine of Lorraine and Maria Maddalena D'Austria, had a role. These accidents of succession helped to strengthen the influence of the upper ranks of officialdom. The Council of Regency for Ferdinando II was made up of men of the Court: Giuliano De Medici, the archbishop of Pisa; Count Orso D'Elci; Senator Niccolo Dell' Antella; and Marchese Fabbrizio Colloredo, the Commissario Generale of the Bande.21 Two secretaries were attached to the council—Andrea Cioli for internal affairs and Curzio Picchena for external affairs. The influence of these men grew like that of their sixteenth-century predecessors, and the Council of Re­ gency continued when Ferdinando II reached majority in 1628. With the death of Curzio Picchena in 1626, Cioli became the principal sec­ retary, an office that he retained until his death in 1640.22 Through the deaths of four members of the Regency in 1636 and 1637, Ferdinando II was finally able to assert his independence, but a Council of State continued with participation of his brothers Mattias, Giovan Carlo, and Leopoldo De Medici. In these circumstances the tasks of the ducal secretaries became still more specialized. A Segretario di Guerra, Lorenzo Usimbardi, had appeared during the 1620s. He stood above the Auditore and paymaster of the Bande, and his succes­ sors were regularly attached to the council.23 Previously the secretaries had been chosen almost exclusively outside of the Florentine elite from among lawyers or notaries who were dependent on the dukes alone. 20

On the organization of the Bande, see Ferretti, "L'organizzazione militare in To-

scana," 1 (1929), 248-75; Ii (1930), 58-80, 133-51,211-19. 21 The Regency was foreseen in the will of Ferdinando I of 1592; see ASF, Misc. Med., F 359, ins. 4. For its composition after the death of Cosimo II, see Galluzzi, Storia, vii, 29-31. 21 On Cioli, seej. Conti, "Relationum," 57; Galluzzi, Storia, vi, 190-91. 25

ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 871-75.

PART II

But the secretaries were now generally chosen among Florentine patri­ cians of the Court. In 1641 Giovanbatista Gondi was made the first sec­ retary and in 1644 Domenico Pandolfini became secretary of war.24 The Council of State continued in the last years of Ferdinando II and under Cosimo III after 1670. In 1674 the members were the Maggiordomo of the Court, the Auditore della Giurisdizione, the Depositario Generale, and since the death of Gondi in 1664, one of the two first sec­ retaries by turn.25 Gian Gastone De Medici, who succeeded Cosimo III in 1720, was introduced into the council in 1693, when the two princi­ pal secretaries were Francesco Panciatichi and Benedetto Quaratesi.26 By the end of the seventeenth century these men stood well above the Magistrato Supremo and Pratica Segreta, which had hardly changed in their membership and functions since the time of Ferdinando I. The type of Renaissance monarchy where attention focused chiefly on the person of the duke, which had been typical of the sixteenth century, evolved in a new, more institutional direction in the seventeenth cen­ tury, so that routine deliberation of the higher officials of state as a group gained in importance. The Administrative Magistracies The growth in number of functionaries at a lower level may have been partly a consequence of this growing concentration of influence around the duke. The Medici did not raise revenue through the sale of offices nor did they expand the size of the bureaucracy by this means, and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not a period of extreme ex­ ternal pressures on Tuscan society, such as accompanied state building in Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Still, in the seventeenth cen­ tury it seemed to require a larger number of functionaries to accom­ plish what had been done under the Republic with fewer men. The emergence of the bureaucracy as a source of steady employment may have promoted the creation of new offices. Nonetheless, the growth in number of functionaries had a utilitarian aspect. The dukes governed a larger territory than had been controlled by the Republic, they were obliged to counter strains imposed by diplomacy and war, and within 24 J.

Conti, "Relationum," 58; ASF, Misc. Med., F413, 872.

25

Pellegrini, Relazioni inedite, 221.

26

Ibid., 250; ASF, Manoscritti, F 321, 797.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

Tuscany they had to deal first with conditions presented by the eco­ nomic expansion of the late sixteenth century, and then by a seven­ teenth-century contraction. With the War of Siena in 1555 and the acquisition of Siena as a fief from Philip II in 1557, Cosimo I had increased the original territory of the Duchy by nearly a third. Siena was ruled by a governor through its own magistracies, but the bureaucracy in Florence was still obliged to give attention to this Stato Nuovo. The Medici were then not involved in another war until Ferdinando I's brief intervention in support of Henry of Navarre in southern France in 1591. Nonetheless, the dukes had an active diplomacy. Their foreign commitments were of a com­ plex nature. Florence was repeatedly claimed as a fief of the Empire by the Hapsburgs in Vienna. They were tied to Spain through their pos­ session of Siena, and there was a permanent Spanish garrison in the presidii, a Spanish enclave in Tuscan territory along the Mediterranean coast. Thus the Medici were obliged to propitiate both branches of the Hapsburgs, and to defend themselves diplomatically in the intrigues of Italian politics. Cosimo enlarged the militia and carried out an exten­ sive program of building fortresses along the borders of the state. He constructed a small fleet for the Order of St. Stephen, which was pres­ ent at Lepanto and still had some importance at the end of the seven­ teenth century under Cosimo III.27 But the Medici never had a large army nor were they involved in a lengthy war. Tuscany was a power of significance in the restricted space of sixteenth- and early seventeenthcentury Italy but was entirely outclassed in the seventeenth-century struggle of Spain, France, and the Empire. The loans obtained from Francesco I by Philip II in 1583 involved large sums sent to Spain, and the attempt of Ferdinando I to escape Spanish domination by providing support to France—to which was added the expensive marriage of Marie De Medici in 1601—were burdens on the ducal finances.28 In the seventeenth century, Cosimo II was obliged to provide troops in de­ fense of Spanish interests in Lombardy in 1614, and then for the service of the Empire in Germany in 1619. Ferdinando II sent further troops to " The most comprehensive work on the Order of St. Stephen is the compilation of documents of Guarnieri, L'Ordine di S. Stefano\ for a list of engagements of the fleet, see vol. 11, 183. On the Bande under Cosimo I, see Ferretti, "L'organizzazione militare in Toscana." On the new fortresses, see Spini, ed., Architettura e Politica, 7-77 et passim. 28

On the foreign loans, see Pampaloni 1 "Cenni storici sul Monte di Pieta," 550.

PART II

Lombardy in 1635. Between 1641 and 1644 he was involved, in league with Venice and Modena, in a war with Pope Urban VIII over the Duchy of Castro, a possession of the Farnese along the southern boundary of Siena. The brief war exhausted the ducal treasury, causing a near crash of the Monte Comune and Monte di Pieta. The remaining years of Ferdinando II were more tranquil, but in the 1690s, at the time of the War of the League of Augsburg, Cosimo III was obliged again to pay tribute to Vienna.29 The growth of the bureaucracy also reflected the changing economic prospects of the Duchy. At the end of the sixteenth century and until about 1620, the population of the Duchy grew steadily by the influx of new men from the countryside into Florence and into the other larger towns, along with their artisan industries. Then came a downturn, and not much new growth occurred until the mid-eighteenth century. The bureaucracy grew with consolidation of the ducal state in the sixteenth century upswing, but then was confronted with the seventeenth-century depression. The economic downturn placed new burdens on the state. The dukes were obliged to defend the economic position of Tus­ cany, provision the inhabitants of its cities in years of scarcity, and help to provide for the increasing number of rural and urban poor. Offices in the bureaucracy undoubtedly helped to employ citizens of the capital who could not find employment elsewhere. One can hardly ignore the greater tendency of subentry into offices under titular officeholders and the increase in number of supernumerary functionaries. Yet, although the ducal government was able to act to some extent positively to con­ front the seventeenth-century economic crisis, it responded in a largely routine manner to the new problems that confronted it. In the lesser administrative offices, institutions inherited from the Republic and the first period of the Duchy continued through the seventeenth century with relatively little change. The Law Courts

In the administration of justice, most of the new functionaries were at an upper level, close under the advisors of the duke. Because of the six­ teenth-century effort to centralize jurisdiction, these new men heard 25

Caggese, Firenze dalla decadenza di Roma, M, 151-339; Galluzzi, Storia, VI-IX,

passim.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

appeals and supervised the procedure of other magistracies, and they did not, for the most part, constitute courts themselves. The functions of the Auditori continued to expand. The Auditore Fiscale had juris­ diction over criminal justice, over the Otto di Guardia e Balia, and over certain financial matters. When the office was created in 1543 he was provided with a lesser staff of six men, three chancellors with two coajutori, and a depositario or provveditore who dealt with fines and property confiscated by the fisc. The Auditore Fiscale preserved this staff in 1551, but as his powers grew, and with the new regulations of 1563 and 1570, he was supplied with a luogotenente. By 1604 the number of as­ sistants had grown to eleven: the provveditore with three assistants, a cancelliere, two scrivani, a ragioniere, and three notai of the Camera Fiscale, who were aggregated to his office from the Camera del Comune, a Republican office that dealt with fines from the courts.30 The Auditore Fiscale also intervened in the Consulta, which with its three Auditori and secretary stood above the other regular courts of the capital. Another Auditore, with jurisdiction over rights for hunting and fish­ ing, emerged during the reign of Ferdinando I. Finally, a new archive was created by Cosimo in 1569 and connected with the law courts as a registry office and repository for protocols of acts registered by notai. 31 Concern with the ultimate jurisdiction of the duke extended to the relationship between Church and State. This was the area of activity of the Auditore della Giurisdizione, who had emerged in the 1530s. The dukes nominated bishops, controlled patronage for many benefices, and had jurisdiction over what were called "luoghi pii," Church build­ ings of various types under lay administration.32 The Medici had a large area of control in affairs of the Church. Still, the Church had large au­ tonomies and exercised its own jurisdiction through the archbishops of Florence, Pisa, and Siena, the bishops, and the Nunzio and Inquisition in Florence. The Auditore della Giurisdizione, who was a very imporJ0

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, v, 75-92; vn, 286f.

31

For the Auditore di Cacce e Pesce, see Seganzzi, Ambasciatori veneti, 111-2, 82. It is

significant of the overemphasis on higher officials that in 1695 this Auditore was thought to have few duties, so that "... [this office was generally given to] . . . un auditore che sia provvisto di altre cariche . .

see ASF, Misc. Med., P 413, 204, Seg. Gab., F 123A,

645-48. 32 On the activity of the Auditore della Giurisdizione, see Taddei, "L'Auditoriato," 29-76.

PART II

tant and active official in the sixteenth century, continued without ac­ quiring a separate staff, although he worked through the ducal secre­ taries until 1693, when Cosimo III, in what was seen by contemporaries as a relaxation of ducal control in matters of Church and State, made the Giurisdizionali into a board of four—two civil and two canon law­ yers, with a secretary. They remained until the single Auditore was re­ stored in 1730, just before a new offensive began to distinguish ducal from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. There were other offices in the area of Church-State relationships. An Auditore di Benefizi e Cose Ecclesiastiche existed in the seventeenth century, and a fixed board of four dep­ uties, called the Deputazione Sopra i Monasteri, exercised a degree of control over convents and monasteries. The Church was taxed, in ac­ cordance with an agreement with Leo X, on property acquired after 1516, and the Decima Ecclesiastica was administered separately from the Decima of "citizens" and paid, in accord with an agreement with Pius VI in 1564, to support the University of Pisa.33 Further institutions were in the area of mixed ducal control that fell between Church and State. Officials of the Bigallo, an orphanage and asylum for the poor in Florence that had jurisdiction over other hospitals of the city, were in­ cluded in some of the Tratte lists.34 But the Buonuomini of S. Martino, a hospital for the indigent poor, and the hospitals of the Innocenti and of Santa Maria Nuova did not pass through the Tratte. Below the level of these jurisdictional offices, there was surprisingly little expansion of staff in the regular law courts. One must remember how diffusely justice was administered in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century states. Most of the Florentine magistracies continued to have ju­ risdiction in their own areas for individual taxes, markets, trades, and other particular matters, under the surveillance of ducal Auditori and Assessori. The sixteenth-century dukes were more concerned with se­ curing the ultimate intervention and cognizance by their own agents than in changing the form of juridical proceedings, although the in" The best available guide to the relationship between Church and State is the intro­ duction to Scaduto, Stato e Chiesa. Otherwise for the Auditore della Giurisdizione, benefizi e cose ecclesiastiche, see ASF, Misc. Med., 600;

for the Giurisdizionali, see Misc. Med.,

see Misc. Med.,

F 413, 323-28,

Monasteri, see Misc. Med., F 34

ASF, Misc. Med.,

Seg. Gab.,

413, 341-45,

F413, 323-28,

F413, 194, 202,

F 413, 239-41; for

F 123A, 475-80;

Seg. Gab.,

Seg. Gab.,

Seg. Gab.,

F 123A, 597-

the Decima Ecclesiastica,

for the Deputazione Sopra

F 123A, 601-604.

F 123A, 475-80.

1

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

quisition of justices and magistrates was strengthened. The Ruota, Otto di Guardia, Conservator! di Leggi, and Mercanzia continued through the seventeenth century much as they had under Cosimo I. The Ruota preserved its small staff of six Auditori for civil cases, two of first instance for the city and four of appeals, with six rotating notai attuari, despite the fact that the court heard appeals both in the city and from the justices sent out from Florence to the lesser towns. The staff of the Otto di Guardia, which had criminal jurisdiction under the Auditore Fiscale, remained similarly small. In 1551 there were four men besides the eight rotating magistrates—a provveditore and three chan­ cellors who stood above the lower level esecutori and guards. In 1604 the Auditore Fiscale had become an ex officio member of the Otto, and it had also acquired a permanent secretary, who directed the proceedings of the court.35 The staff of the Conservatori di Leggi hardly changed, while the Mercanzia, the commercial court, had already employed a regular justice under the Republic, and its staff increased from three men in 1551 to five in 169$. However, in the seventeenth century the activity of the Mercanzia decreased as the volume of foreign trade di­ minished, the several notai di banco who had been licensed for the use of merchants disappeared. By 1695 the status of the court had fallen, in that the magistrates, justice, and staff had passed under general super­ vision of the Soprassindaco of the Nove.36 Repeated ordinances attempted to speed up the procedure of the courts and to regulate fees paid by petitioners to the judges, magis­ trates, and lesser functionaries. It is clear that the overlapping jurisdic­ tions of magistracies and the long chains of appeal caused delays, while there was sporadic pressure from lawyers to rationalize procedure.37 35 On the Ruota, seeD'Addario, "Burocrazia," 435-36; ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 2, 43; Misc. Med., F 413, 831-40, Seg. Gab. F 123A, 228-34. Further on the Ruota, see Pansini, "La ruota fiorentina." On the Otto, see D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 402; ASF, Mano­ scritti, F 283, 33, Misc. Med., F 413, 723-35; Antonelh, "La magistratura degli otto di guardia," passim. 36 On the Conservatori di Leggi, see D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 402-403; ASF, Ma­ noscritti, F 283, 3, 35, Misc. Med., F 413, 243-50, Seg. Gab., F 123A, 119-29, 221-27. For the Mercanzia, see ASF, Manoscritti, F283, 5, 36, Misc. Med., F413, 505-22, Seg. Gab.,

F123A, 119-30. 37 See among others the indications in BNF, Magliabecchiana, cl. xxix, Cod. 1; A. Accolti, "Saggio di alcum avvertimenti politico-legali. . . 1644," and in ASF, Misc. Med., F 370, ins. 36.

PART II

The trend in the development oflegal training emphasized the impor­ tance of trained jurists, rather than boards of rotating "citizen" judges. There was an attempt to reform the court system further in this direc­ tion in 1680 through an extension of the functions of the Auditori of the Ruota. The tribunal of the Onesta was suppressed and absorbed by the Otto di Guardia, while the Otto lost its old criminal competence, and a new criminal court was attached to the Ruota with three perma­ nent Auditori, called the Ruota Criminale. However, this reform was short-lived. The Onesta never reemerged, but the old powers of the Otto were restored in 1699.38 Some observers of the sixteenth century thought the ducal administration as a whole was pervaded by a network of spies, and the esecutori of the Otto, the lowest agents of the Auditore Fiscale, may have given this impression.39 The Otto may have helped to counter disorder and violence in the sixteenth-century city, but here developments had stopped. The Medici never created a separate body of police. Like the figure of justice that Francesco I had erected on top of a column in Piazza Santa Trinita in 1581, justice was administered by high-status officials distant from citizens. The duke as the ultimate font of grace was a distant symbol of order and security, and the punish­ ments that emanated from ducal justice were harsh. The gibbet stood outside of Porta Santa Croce, and the Stinche, the prison near the old Palazzo of the Podesta with its two magistracies, bargelli, and guards, retained the aspect of a grim urban fortress.40 >' On the reform, see Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xix, 141-54; on the Ruota Cri­ minale, see Antonelli, "Magistratura degli Otto di Guardia," 35-37; ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 843-47. For the Onesta, see D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 414-15; ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 40. 59 Segarizzi, Ambasciatori veneti, III-I, 149-50: "gli ufficiali [of the Otto] . . vanno di notte per la citta, mandano Ie liste al detto segretario del criminale di tutti quelli che da Ioro sono incontrati . . ." and ". . . un numero infinito di una certa sorte d'uomini che sono da tutti fuggiti come la pesta, perche . . . sono chiamati Ie spie del Duca . . . questo terrore delle spie e ridotto a questi termini, che tutti hanno paura del compagno e che uno non sia spia dell' altra per acquistarsi la grazia del Duca. . . ." In 1604, the esecutori of the Otto included 18 famigli, 2 bargelli, a luogotenente del bargello, and an undetermined num­ ber offamigli del Bargello; see ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 33. 40 On Tuscan criminal procedure in general, from the standpoint of the eighteenthcentury reforms, see the essay by Paolim, "Discorso politico-storico sui giudizi " For the Stinche, see D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 420-21; ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 5, 41, Misc. Med., F 413, 891-900, Seg Gab., F 123A, 99-103.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

The Finances

In contrast to the law courts, there was a steady expansion of personnel in the administration of the finances. Here the new functionaries were partly at an upper but chiefly at an intermediary level. They were em­ ployed partly in the administration of taxes left over from the Republic, partly—because the dukes sought to compensate for insufficient tax revenue by borrowing—in the expanded administration of the public debt, and partly in new offices involved with the patrimony of the Medici, in what can be called roughly the ducal domain. The devel­ opment was from a public financial administration of the Republic with its beginnings of a system of direct taxation and elaborate controls to a more private and oblique system. The Republic had been highly innovative in public finance, and the dukes made full use of the re­ sources available to them, although there was little advance in direct taxation. Tuscans seemed to have been willing to accept ducal absolut­ ism so long as it did not mean that direct personal taxes increased much. Instead, the Medici finances operated through indirect taxation and borrowing. The peculiar accounting methods for revenue and expenditure make it difficult to discern global assessments, but the tax burden appears to have been very light. There was no true central treasury. Revenues were received through different magistracies, which also disbursed them haphazardly through mandates for payment. A certain greater availa­ bility of resources in the financial magistracies may thus have been the important factor for the growth of staff in this area. Nonetheless, through estimates of revenue made from time to time, one can glimpse the trend of change in the way the dukes marshalled resources. There was a gradual progression from the city of Florence as the chief source of revenue to a broader dependence on the Florentine territorial state and on the State of Siena—that is, on the regional state as a whole. An estimate of the yield of the finances under Cosimo I in 1550 in­ dicates that public revenue in the first years of the Duchy came chiefly from taxes imposed on the city of Florence itself. The Decima, the di­ rect land tax paid by Florentine citizens, provided about 10 percent of revenue. The Dogana of Florence, customs duties, and the Casse e Porte, a further tax on goods entering and leaving the city, accounted for a further 41 percent. Generalized indirect taxes such as the Gabella

PART II

del Sale, the salt monopoly, and the Gabella dei Contratti, the tax on notarized contracts, which fell both on the city and on towns of the Do­ minion, accounted for 29 percent. Taxes on provincial towns, the rev­ enues of Pisa and Pistoia, the Decima of the Contado, and the Tasse dei Comuni (local estimi assessed locally and paid to the Cinque del Con­ tado and later to the Nove in Florence) accounted for 20 percent. The remainder was made up chiefly of small items of intake from different Florentine magistracies, and of fines paid to the fisc.41 This balance put the major tax burden on the capital and reflected the practice of the Re­ public, as did the relative importance, however small, of direct taxa­ tion, an innovation that had developed during the fifteenth century.42 If one compares these revenues with estimates of revenue from the 1730s, the trend of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries becomes clear. By the eighteenth century the relative tax revenue derived from Florence had decreased with respect to the remainder of the state, and there was an expansion of indirect as opposed to direct taxation. In the 1730s the share of the Decima, Dogana, and Gabelle delle Porte of Flor­ ence had fallen to 4, 6, and 12 percent of revenue respectively, or 22 per­ cent in all. There was a considerable increase in the proportion of gen­ eralized indirect taxes affecting both Florence and the provinces. Among the Gabella del Sale, the Gabella dei Contratti, and the Farine (a group of new taxes from the mid-sixteenth century on foodstuffs and mills), indirect taxes grew from 29 to 45 percent of revenue. Taxes that weighed only on the provincial towns also increased, from 20 to 27 percent of the total, with sizeable new contributions from the Dogana of Livorno and from Siena.43 Indirect taxes were far easier to impose over an extended area than direct taxes, and their growing importance is indicative of the shift in dependence from capital to region. As in the law courts, the new officials of the finances were partly of a supervisory type. According to an instruction of Ferdinando I in 1587, orders for the treasury were to pass from the Segreteria di Stato to the Depositario Generale in the Pratica Segreta, and in the seven­ teenth century the Depositario was a member of the Council of State. In 1537 the Depositeria had been the treasury of the duke's own assign41

See "Entrate dello Sta[to] di Fiorenza, al netto ordinarie, 1550," in D'Addario, "Bu-

rocrazia," 436-37. 42

Molho, Florentine Public Finance, 22-122 et passim.

43

ASF, Seg. Gab., F 123B, 8off; averages for the years 1731-37.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

ment of public revenue. This assignment was initially paid by the Monte Comune, the central financial office of the Republic, which continued as an important office of the finances in the first period of the Duchy. There was a distinction among public revenues, public reve­ nues officially assigned to the duke, and the private patrimony of the Medici, although the distinction became progressively blurred. Both the ducal assignment and Medici patrimony were accounted for by the Depositeria, but this was still not the total of state revenue. The Ufficiali of the Monte Comune continued to receive proceeds from the Decima and revenue from the casse of other magistracies to fund the debt, and in the first period of the Duchy the Monte continued to make a large number of payments. The ten ufficiali of the Monte were reduced to four in 1573, of which two, the Soprassindaci, were permanent ap­ pointments, while the permanent staff of the Monte grew in the six­ teenth century from twenty-three men to twenty-nine.44 In 1537 the assignment of the duke had been a mere 12,000 Scudi an­ nually.43 Butfrom the time of the War ofSiena in the 1550s, an increas­ ing amount of revenue was diverted to the duke directly, and gradually the Depositeria Generale replaced the Monte Comune as the central of­ fice of the finances. The Depositario, at first a functionary of the ducal household, is not included in the lists of officeholders for 1551 and 1604; but in a fragmentary list for 1561 he appears with five assistants, and it is assumed that he had at least this many in the other two years.46 The Auditore Fiscale also intervened broadly in the financial adminis­ tration, and the Soprassindaci gradually absorbed the old functions of the Ufficiali of the Monte as the central auditing and accounting office. These men, originally in 1552 two citizens appointed a mano for indef­ inite terms, were reunited to the Monte in 1573, but in the seventeenth century they had become a separate body with an independent staff of fifteen men.47 Among other financial offices, the Zecca—the mint, with two magistrates and five permanent functionaries—hardly 44

ASF, Tratte,

F 86, 78;

D'Addario, "Burocrazia,"

403-404;

ASF, Manoscritti,

F 283, 34. 45

Cantmi, LegisIazione Toscana, 1, 120.

46

ASF, Guardaroba,

F 50,

110; Misc. Med., F413,

331-39.

Onthedevelopmentofthe

Depositeria, see Canestrini, La scienza e I'arte di stato. 47

Ibid.,

181-88;

ASF, Misc. Med.,

F 413, 881-88,

IOI

Seg. Gab.,

F 123A, 441-48.

PART II

changed, although by 1695 it also depended on the Depositeria rather than on the Monte Comune.48 In the 1620s, at the time of Ferdinando II, the sum accounted for by the Depositeria had risen to some 600,000 to 800,000 Scudi annually, chiefly from the Farine, Dogana, Gabella dei Contratti, and Nove. The patrimonial possessions of the Medici provided a smaller sum. The re­ ceipts went chiefly to the ducal family, to the militia, to the galleys of St. Stephen, and to the upkeep of fortresses. Other revenues continued to be received and paid out by the Monte and by various other magis­ tracies.49 In the 1730s the Depositeria received a smaller total revenue than it had in the 1620s, and there were further changes in the types of receipts. The dukes sold monopolies in the seventeenth century, which multiplied for those engaged in the manufacturing and selling of to­ bacco, spirits, and playing cards; the manufacturing of felt hats and tal­ low candles; the mining of alum; hunting deer; and tuna fishing at Portoferraio. In small amounts, they also entered into the more private revenue of the state.50 By 1695 the staff of the Monte Comune had dwindled to only fourteen men.51 But the decline of the Monte did not mean that the dukes did not follow the practice of the Republic in an attempt to borrow from their subjects. Other new Monti were created under separate administrations. To pay for his involvement with France and for provisioning the Duchy with grain in the 1590s, Ferdinando I created a new Monte Vacabile in 1591, which was clearly sep­ arated from the Monte Comune in a regulation of 1593.52 Cosimo II turned his attention for raising new funds to the Monte di Pieta, and then the regents for Ferdinando II started a new policy of borrowing on the revenues of the gabelles. The Ufficiali of the Gabella del Sale had charge of the salt tax, overseeing the production of salt near Volterra 48

D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 409; ASF, Manoscritti,

F283, 40, Misc.

Seg. Gab., F 123A, 562-72 49 Note the balances of the Depositena in ASF, Misc. Med.,

Med.,

F413, 921-

ins. 15,

16, 26, 29,

29,

F 264,

for the years 1626-50. 50 BR, Moreniana, 142 -11, "Compendio istorico del Governo Civile, economico e mi-

44,

litare della Toscana a

SM

il Re Carlo di Napoli, di Sicilia, Duca di Parma e Gran Principe

di Toscana . . . [di Luigi Viviam ?, 1733]," of balances of the Depositena for the

17—28

1730s is

"Bilancio entrate." A more detailed set

in ASF, Seg. Gab.,

see Dal Pane, "Riforme finanziane e riforme economiche," " ASF, Misc. Med ,

F 413, 525-53.

" Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, χιπ,

255-60;

xiv,

37-42.

F 123B.

71—98.

On the Appalti,

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

and arranging for its distribution to Florence and the provincial towns, which were expected to consume their quotas. These officials had nine assistants in 1551, with additional provveditori outside of the capital at Volterra and Pisa. By 1604 the number of men in the central office had grown to eleven. Then, in 1625, the regents for Ferdinando II created two new Monti on the Gabella del Sale, which was enlarged in 1641 and acquired a separate board of seven fixed protettori. In 1695 fourteen men in Florence were occupied with keeping the Monte and Gabella del Sale operating. 53 The financial problems resulting from Ferdinando H's involvement in the War of Castro in the 1640s evoked a further effort to raise revenue through the creation and sale of monopolies for tobacco and spirits and a reorganization of the Monte di Pieta. This had become a charitable loan and deposit bank in the sixteenth century, attracting the savings of Florentines at all levels of the social hierarchy. It was linked to the ducal finances in that Francesco I used its capital for a loan to Spain in 1583, Cosimo II borrowed from it in 1616, and it was then further plundered by Ferdinando II, who obliged depositors to accept only a fraction of their original interest in 1645. Thus the Monte di Pieta also became a part of the debt.54 Funded debts of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries were generally of two types: perpetual funds in which holders passed shares on from generation to generation; and short-term funds, generally at higher interest, in which the shares became extinguished on the death of the original shareholders. The earlier Monti of Florence had been mostly perpetual funds, but a short-term Monte Vacabile was established by Ferdinando I in 1591. Cosimo III created another one in 1692, of 600,000 Scudi, with a board of six protettori and a staff of fourteen.55 By these means the funded debt of the Medici reached truly immense proportions. At the beginning of the Hapsburg regency in 1737 it totaled some 14 million Scudi. Among indirect taxes, on which the finances increasingly depended, 53 ASF, Manoscntti, F 283, 38, Misc. Med., F 413, 609-37; Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xvi, 344-53. 54 Pampaloni, "Cenni stonci sul Monte di Pieta," 542-55; ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 555-607, Seg. Gab., F 123A, 295-331. Carol Menning of Brown University is completing work on the Monte di Pieta in the sixteenth century. 55 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, ix, 272-324; ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 639-53, Seg.

G a b . , F 123A, 361-80.

103

PART II

the Farine assumed a considerable importance. This was a tax on the milling of grain imposed in 1552 that was administered along with a tax on butchering meat by a bureau directed by the Depositario and the Auditore Fiscale. The tassa del macinato was quite profitable and was made effective through its connection with the provisioning legisla­ tion. Its proceeds went directly to the Depositeria. It employed twentyeight men in 1604 and twenty-three in 1695.36 The Gabella dei Contratti, Dogana, and Decima continued much as they had at the end of the Republic. The men employed by the Gabella dei Contratti, the tax on notarized contracts, attempted over two centuries to enforce a tax on contracts and to collate copies of huge numbers of notarized docu­ ments for the information of the fisc, tasks requiring eight men in the mid-sixteenth century and sixteen at the end of the seventeenth.57 The Dogana, the system of tolls, under its magistracy of four Ufficiali, had sixteen men in its central office, more officials under local direction in the provincial towns, and a swarm of menial employees—bollatori, Iegatori, guardie, and Jacchini—in Florence and the provincial toll stations, who inspected, stamped, and carted about merchandise in the Floren­ tine and provincial customs houses.58 The recourse to indirect taxation becomes more comprehensible when one considers the difficulties of administration that beset the Decima, the direct tax on land and houses paid by Florentine citizens and inhabitants of the Florentine Contado. Direct taxation presented prob­ lems because its imposition and collection involved a degree of nego­ tiation with the propertied classes who were most affected, and in Flor­ ence these were the patricians. The fifteenth-century Catasto of 1427, a tax on all types of income imposed on Florence and throughout Flor­ entine territory, had grown out of the Republican system of forced loans, and continued, despite difficulties of administration, until 1480. But the Florentine state was not again able to summon up this kind of civic spirit. The Decima, which was assessed initially in 1494, was only a tax on income from real property imposed in Florence and its Con­ s'*

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana,

11, 297-305;

ASF, Manoscritti, F 283,

51,

Misc. Med.,

F 413, 447-70, Seg. Gab. F 123Λ, 501-20.

" D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 447-70,

Seg. Gab. F 123A,

>8 D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 921-29,

Seg. Gab., F 123A,

419-20;

ASF, Manoscritti, F 283,

39,

Misc Med., F

ASF, Manoscritti, F 283,

37,

Misc. Med., F 413,

413,

481-99. 415-17;

562-72.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

tado. New revenue assessments for the Decima were made in 1534, the magistracy absorbed the older offices of the Prestanze and Vendite in 1551 and 1579, acquired its own assessore, and developed its own juris­ diction. There were fifteen regular employees of the Decima in 1604, and four more men for the Decima Ecclesiastica, the separate tax on Church property. The ineffectiveness of the Decima, and the difficulty of administer­ ing the tax, arose from the fact that the dukes never succeeded in re­ newing the revenue assessments of 1534 on which it was based. Thus the officials of the Decima attempted to keep the tax accounts of prop­ erty owners up to date by compiling registers of purchases and transfers of land and houses in double-entry registers. Whenever there was a purchase or sale of property, the tax amount was transferred from ac­ count to account. When a property owner died, new accounts were opened for his heirs.59 New men were added for this purpose, and in a final effort to keep up with operations and trace dead-letter accounts, the Decima was reorganized under a permanent Soprintendente Ge­ nerate in 1690, who stood above the four citizen magistrates. In 1695, while the Decima continued on its old basis, the permanent staff, in­ cluding that of the separate Decima Ecclesiastica, had grown to twenty-eight men.60 For what became the ducal domain, the emphasis shifted from the public buildings of the Republic to ducal regaglie and to the Medici pos­ sessions and estates. The Capitani di Parte Guelfa had been occupied with the small concerns of public property of the Republic, and this magistracy absorbed the old Ufficiali di Torre, which was concerned with roads, streets, and the city walls, in 1547. The Capitani di Parte seems to have been a busy office in the sixteenth century, which, be­ sides the ten magistrates, employed an Auditore and staff of eight in 1551. It was concerned with fortresses, town walls, public roads, bridges, drainage, maintenance of river channels to guard against floods, and the streets of Florence. Its authority extended geographi­ cally outward through the Contado from the upper Arno to the out­ skirts of Pisa. At the end of the century the architect Bernardo Buon59

The inventory of the Decima Granducale lists nearly

lated to these operations between 60

Pagnini, Delia Decima,

Manoscritti,

F 283, 42,

6,000

volumes of records re­

1534 and 1776.

1, 107

et passim; D'Addario, "Burocrazia,"

Misc. Med.,

F 413, 285-328,

Seg. Gab., F 123A,

405-406;

562-72.

ASF,

PART II

talenti was one of its chief engineers. Yet the Capitani di Parte was not responsible for the supervision of all buildings, for five extraordinary provveditori were appointed for the construction of the Uffizi in 1560; a second office developed, the Scrittoio delle Fortezze e Fabbriche, which in 1604 was still a suboffice of the Capitani di Parte. The two bureaus together had about the same staff in 1695 and 1736 as they had in 1604.61 The Guardaroba and Scrittoio delle Possessioni, which administered the private patrimony of the Medici, were under the general supervi­ sion of the Depositeria Generale. They do not appear in the Tratte lists for 1551 or 1604, probably because they were still considered to be of­ fices of the ducal household and of the Court. The Medici had a large family patrimony: estates in Tuscany, Monti shares in Rome, fiefs in the Kingdom of Naples, and further possessions in the Duchy of Urbino. In the sixteenth century the Guardaroba and Scrittoio delle Pos­ sessioni developed to manage this patrimony as offices of the Court. There were two parallel developments: on one hand there was an ex­ pansion of functionaries grouped around the Florentine magistracies, and on the other hand there was a transfer of officials to the bureaucracy from the household of the duke. The first of these two developments was by far the more important one in Florence, although the second is more usually associated with administrative developments in northern Europe. A list of salariati of the Court in 1560 provides the names of a guardaroba, sotto guardaroba, and scriuano of the Guardaroba, and of a cassiere of the Scrittoio delle Possessioni. Another Court list, for 1604, shows twelve officials of the Guardaroba and Scrittoio. But the Scrittoio delle Possessioni appears in the Tratte list in 1736, when it em­ ployed twelve men in Florence under a Soprassindaco, and others out­ side of the city. The Guardaroba supervised gilders, furriers, upholsterers, and other artisans, and in 1736 was still considered to be an office of the Court.62 61 D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 399-400; ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 30, Misc. Med., F 413, 737-^9, Fortezze e Fabbriche, 437-44, 618-31, Seg. Gab., F 123A, 22-48. On public works carried out under direction of the Capitani di Parte Guelfa m the late sixteenth cen­ tury, see Cerchiai and Quiriconi, "Relazioni e rapporti," 187-253, and Gallerani and Guidi, "Relazioni e rapporti," 261-316. 63 For 1560, see ASF, Manoscritti, F321, i53f .;for 1604, 33if. For the 1730s, see BR, Moreniana, 142 -n, I4f. For 1736, see Scrittoio Possessioni, Seg. Gab., F 123A, 650-69.

I06

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

Finally, the Magona, the monopoly for the production of iron from the island of Elba, was a private business undertaking of the dukes and became a part of the bureaucracy. The iron mines had been worked by a company under Medici control from the fifteenth century onward, and Cosimo I acquired further rights over them from the Appiani, the princes of Piombino, in 1572. The administrators of the monopoly do not appear as officeholders in 1604, although by 1695 the Magona had also become a regular bureau, with eight officials in Florence and more men at Pistoia, where the iron ore was smelted, finished, and proc­ essed.63 When comparing the number of court and city institutions, the city still predominated; few new offices emerged independently out of the Medici Court. The General Administration The offices that fell outside of the immediate area of the law courts and finances, although there were no true sectoral divisions in the bureau­ cracy, can be grouped together under the rough heading of "general administration." Some of these were concerned with provisioning and public assistance, others were concerned with the general control ex­ ercised from Florence over the provincial towns. The provisioning of Florence with foodstuffs was a necessity of first importance for the Republic and the Duchy alike. The Abbondanza and Grascia, the provisioning magistracies, developed in response to efforts to assure a sufficient urban food supply. Grain prices rose sharply in the sixteenth century, and Tuscany experienced grain short­ ages at the end of the century.64 The Abbondanza secured local supplies of grain, imported grain, maintained granaries, controlled the market­ ing of grain, and supervised bakers in an attempt to assure a sufficient supply of bread. The office was reformed by Cosimo I in 1556, and in 1604 it was under the direction of a provveditore, with a magistracy of four rotating citizens, and a staff consisting of sotto provveditore, camarlingo, cancelliere, and two assistants. The Abbondanza was reorganized again after a grain crisis in 1648-49, when the rotating magistrates were 61

BR, Manoscritti, 142-11, 140-43; ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 493-500, Seg. Gab.,

F I23A, 573-96· 64 Parenti, Prezzi e mercato delgrano a Siena, 27-28. This problem is treated at greater length in Chapter 12.

PART II

replaced by a board of fixed Protettori and the staff grew still further.65 The Grascia exercised a similar control over the marketing of meat, fish, and oil, and underwent a similar development. New ordinances for its regulation were published in 1561, 1580, and 1680. In 1695 the office was directed by a rotating committee of five citizens under the direction of a provveditore and had a staff of nine.66 The dukes also intervened at other moments of threatened crisis, and the Sanita developed as an office with powers to act in years of plague and epidemic. Through reforms of 1549 and 1604, this magistracy also became a fixed deputation, acquired its own provveditore and chancel­ lor, and assumed direction of local health offices in the provincial towns. These were fully operative, and had some effect, in the plague of 1630.67 The Republic had also provided other types of assistance. Orphans and abandoned children of the poor were relegated to hospi­ tals, but for more well-to-do citizens the Magistrato dei Pupilli contin­ ued through the seventeenth century as a court of wards.68 Another public service, the post office, was an entirely new undertaking. In the mid-sixteenth century this was a concession farmed out by the duke to a private individual. But beginning with an ordinance of Cosimo I in 1564 a maestro generate delle poste began to be appointed regularly through the Magistrato Supremo. Other regulations for the Poste fol­ lowed in 1587, 1623, and 1628. In 1695 the Uffizio delle Poste was di­ rected by three officials under a Soprintendente Generale who em­ ployed fourteen other men in the capital for the collection and distribution of letters.65 Through their efforts Florence enjoyed a reg­ ular mail service at what might appear to have been a surprisingly early date. 6s

ASF, Guardaroba,

Gab.,

F

1 -9,

Seg.

123A, 381—95. For the nuova Abbondanza, see Cantini, Legislazione Toscana,

XVII,

F

50, 88f., Manoscritti,

F

283, 43, Misc. Med.,

F

413,

371-75, and, on the reform of 1697, xxi, 14-30. Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, iv, 253-63; ix, 272-324; xix, 177-82; D'Addano, "Burocrazia," 407-408; ASF, Manoscritti, Gab., 67

F

F

F

283, 42, Misc. Med.,

F

413, 473-91, Seg.

123A, 251-48.

On the Sanita, see the historical introduction to ASF, Inventano 404, Guardaroba,

50, ioof., Manoscritti,

F

283, 43, Misc. Med.,

F

413, 851-58, Seg. Gab.,

F

123A, 241-

48. The extent of its jurisdiction in 1630 appears in Cipolla, Cristofano and the Plague 68

D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 407-408; ASF, Manoscritti,

797-813, Seg. Gab.,

F

F

283, 40, Misc. Med., F 413,

123A, 104-18.

"® Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, v, 157-58, xi, 55f., xv, 329-30, xvi, 38-39; ASF, Misc. Med.,

F

413, 771-76, Seg. Gab.,

F

123A, 632-44.

EXPANSION OF THE CENTRAL BUREAUCRACY

It is difficult to define the limits of the bureaucracy in this area of gen­ eral welfare, for some other institutions, which have not been consid­ ered separately here, also appear in the Tratte lists. There was the Bigallo, the hospital for the poor; Or San Michele, the shrine maintained since ancient times by the Comune, which had some jurisdiction over the central markets; the Opera of Santa Maria del Fiore, which main­ tained the fabric of the cathedral; and the Studio Fiorentino, which served partly as a university. These institutions had other officials. The guilds also remained important through the eighteenth century. Their boards of deputies and consuls were selected from the guild member­ ship through special borse of the Tratte, but in the sixteenth century the staff of the guilds were appointed like those of other ducal offices. In­ deed, the decline of the guilds is indicative of the consolidation of the new system. The guilds had been very important in the Florentine gov­ ernment of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; one could say that the Florentine city-state had initially emerged from these institutions. But their importance decreased in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the magistracies of the Republic grew. After 1532, guild membership, in all but the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, no longer affected the admission of citizens to the scrutinies for offices in the magistracies.70 In 1534 the fourteen minor guilds were disestablished, or combined, and later the statutes of the remaining guilds were revised. Nine guilds remained in the eighteenth century: the Arte del Cambio, Mercatanti, Lana, Seta, Medici e Speziali, Vaiai e Quoiai, Fabbricanti, Linaiuoli, and Giudici e Notai. These institutions were entirely subordinate to the new system. A regular staff of provveditori, assessori, and catnarlinghi appointed through the Tratte had appeared around the guild consuls and Deputati, who themselves were appointed a mano by the duke. Guild regu­ lation of Florentine professions and trades continued into the eight­ eenth century, but the guild statutes were enforced by the Mercanzia and other regular courts, and the guilds were lower-level institutions in the regular bureaucracy. 70

There is no comprehensive study of the development of the guilds under the Duchy,

although some indications may be drawn from Doren, Le arti Florentine, and Sarchiani, Ragionamento sul commercio. Regarding their personnel, see D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 421-28; ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 46-50, Misc. Med., F 413, 33-191, Seg. Gab., F 123A, 130-220. Charitable institutions of the city are described in Passerini, Storia degli stabilimenti.

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

The offices in the central bureaucracy were situated in Florence, but their jurisdiction extended well beyond the walls of the capital. In the sixteenth century their jurisdiction was exercised most effectively in the Contado, nearest to the city, where Florentine rule was longest and most completely established. At a greater distance was the territorial state, the Distretto, which completed the Florentine Dominion with its privileged towns and feudal jurisdictions, and after 1557, the State of Siena. Siena continued to be governed separately from Florence into the eighteenth century with its own administration. The dukes also ac­ quired a number of small, previously independent fiefs around the pe­ riphery of the state in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the size of the Duchy did not change significantly after the 1550s. 1 There were a number of different channels through which orders of the central administration were transmitted to the provinces, which, despite particular privileges, were ruled more or less directly from the capital. The dukes had to deal with the privileges of subject cities, but they never had to bargain with provincial estates. The law courts of Florence, particularly the Otto di Guardia and the Ruota, had appellate jurisdiction throughout the Florentine Dominion, as did the tribunals of other magistracies. But the office of the Nove Conservatori del Dominio Fiorentino was particularly concerned with the provincial towns. The Nove was a new office that absorbed the functions of ear­ lier magistracies in 1559, and by the early eighteenth century, besides its three senators and six citizens, all appointed a mano, it had accumu­ lated a permanent staff of thirty-three men. The affairs of Siena passed separately through the Segreteria di Stato. Pisa and its territory, al­ though it remained part of the Florentine Dominion, acquired a degree of administrative autonomy. The Practica Segreta had jurisdiction over two other privileged territories: Pistoia and its region, and the detached ' Fasano Guarini, Stato Mediceo, 10. IIO

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

communities and ducal fiefs at Pontremoli, north of Lucca. But the Nove had jurisdiction over what might be called economic and political matters for all other towns in the Florentine Dominion. The magis­ trates and staff audited communal expenditures, supervised the collec­ tion of taxes, and received tax revenues. They also approved many ap­ pointments of local officials, reviewed local statutes, adjudicated disputes between towns, received petitions, were guardians of luoghi pii, and concerned themselves with other affairs outside of Florence. 2 Moving outward from the capital, one wonders whether the new of­ fices of the Duchy were all, like the Nove, in Florence, thus further consolidating the dominance of the capital over the territorial state that had begun to emerge under the Republic. Or was there a parallel ex­ pansion of institutions outside of Florence, which helped to guard pro­ vincial autonomies? The government of the Dominion had presented serious problems in the last years of the Republic, and in the first period of the Duchy a relationship between Florence and its territory seemed to have been emerging in which feudal nobles and the notables of pro­ vincial towns were linked to the ducal regime through the ceremonies of the Medici Court. Yet the administrative bond with Florence soon tightened, central institutions developed at the expense of provincial ones, and provincial autonomies that remained from the Republic con­ tinued to decline. With its component parts, the dukes ruled a small to medium-sized state in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century terms, smaller than the Duchy of Savoy or the Republic of Venice. The central nucleus of the Florentine Dominion, the Stato Vecchio, was the Contado, a territory divided at the level of criminal jurisdiction into four Vicariati, a Podesteria, and the detached Capitanato of Livorno. The oldest part of this territory, an area with a diameter of about sixty miles around Florence, contained the three Vicariati of Certaldo, S. Giovanni, and Scarperia.3 This had been the first area of Florentine expansion, and from the four" On the Nove, see ASF, Consulta, see Magistrato Supremo,

F 4310, 24;

F 454,

second part,

ins.

1 -3; for the staff in

for later, see Manoscritti,

F 283, 32,

1559,

Misc. Med.,

F 413· 655-56, Seg. Gab., F 123A, 49-733 About 1560 the Florentine Contado contained the following Vicariati (criminaljurisdictions that had subordinate Podesterie with civil jurisdiction): Certaldo, S. Giovanni, Scarperia, S. Miniato al Tedesco, and also the Podesteria of Prato, which had criminal jurisdiction, and the Capitanato of Livorno. See Fasano Guarini, Stato Mediceo , 83-93.

Ill

PART II

teenth century it was controlled directly by the central magistracies of the capital. Then the Dominion extended further, engulfing the ContadeofColle, Pescia, SanMiniato, Pistoia, Arezzo, and Montepulciano in the fourteenth century; of Pisa, Cortona, San Sepolcro, and Volterra in the fifteenth century, and of Pietrasanta, north of Pisa, in 1513, until it extended in a long arc from Lake Trasimeno down the valley of the Arno to the Mediterranean coast. Some of this new territory was as­ signed to the Contado, but most of it was called the Distretto. Depend­ ing on the nature of their original treaties with Florence, these more re­ cently controlled towns preserved their own statutes, magistracies, and particular privileges—an uncertain federative relationship that was in­ creasingly resolved in the fifteenth century into close association and control from the capital.4 The surviving independent feudal nobles of Tuscany were also largely in the Distretto, and some of these preserved a special degree of autonomy.5 The Republic had sent out justices to the more distant towns and subjected them to taxation, levies of troops, and a degree of economic regulation. Still, at the end of the fifteenth century central control was uncertain at moments of crisis. After the expulsion of the Medici and after the French invasion of 1494, Pisa revolted, internal factions at Pi­ stoia reduced it to disorder, the loyalty of Arezzo became unsure, Cor­ tona was briefly controlled from the Papal States, and the Volterra suc­ ceeded in regaining some of the privileges it had lost at the time of its revolt and reconquest in 1472. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Dominion had reached approximately its permanent size. Aside from Siena, the new territory added to the state by the sixteenth- and seven­ teenth-century dukes was very small. The chief Republican officials sent out to the Dominion from Flor4

The major administrative units of the Distretto were: Anghiari, Arezzo, Barga,

Borgo S. Sepolcro, Campigha, Castiglione Fiorentino, Castiglione del Terziere e Bagnone, Castrocaro, Colle Valdelsa, Cortona, Firenzuola, Fivizzano, Montagna di Pi­ stoia, Montepulciano, Pescia, Pietrasanta, Pieve S. Stefano, Pisa, Pistoia, Poppi, S. Giminiano, Sestino, Val di Bagno, Val di Chiana, Vico Pisano, and Volterra; see ibid., 93107. A more recently controlled territory, San Miniato, Livorno, was aggregated to the Contado rather than to the Distretto. 5 On the formation of the Dominion, see Becker, "The Florentine Territorial State," !09-39; Guidi, Governo della citta-repubblica di Firenze, in. Of fundamental importance for assessing the cohesion of this territory m the sixteenth century is Fasano Guarini, Stato Mediceo. See also her "Alia perifena del Granducato Mediceo," 1-29.

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

ence were Capitani, Podesta, and Vicari, Florentine citizens who served as the local justices and were selected for brief terms through the Tratte. They were accompanied by regular justices, notai, and men-atarms, who were often provincials. The Capitani and Podesta were the older officials, and the Vicari were of more recent installation, from the mid-fourteenth century. Capitani served in larger towns of the Distretto and had both civil and criminal jurisdiction, as did some Podesta. In the Contado, Vicari had mixed criminal and civil jurisdiction and stood above groups of Podesta who had civil jurisdiction alone. There were eighty-one justices in 1551, thirty-two in the Contado and forty-nine in the Distretto: fifteen Capitani, twelve Vicari, and fiftyfour Podesta. A few other towns, chiefly in the Distretto, had the right to elect their own justices or were sent minor ufficiali in the form of notai. These territorial jurisdictions remained with little change into the eighteenth century, except that new justices were sent out to territories added to the Dominion, and the status of some jurisdictions changed. The number of major officials sent out from Florence in 1736 was eighty-five.6 Besides these men, the chief local officials who linked municipal governments to the capital were the communal chancellors and camarlinghi, who came under the supervision of the Nove in 1559. Even small local communities had their own statutes, an elected council in one form or another, and magistrates who regulated markets, roads, and provisioning, levied taxes, and maintained luoghipii. At the end of the Republic the communal chancellors and camarlinghi had been locally elected officials, but during the reign of Cosimo I control over the chancellors tightened. Beginning early in his reign, there were scattered reforms of town statutes that proceeded through the Auditore delle Riformagioni in Florence.7 The camarlinghi, as officials responsible for local finances, continued to be selected locally, but the chancel6

For 1551, see Fasano Guarini, Stato Mediceo, 83-107, a list ofjurisdictions rather than of officials; see also D'Addario, "Burocrazia," 428-33; for 1604, see ASF, Manoscritti, F 283, 14-24; for 1695, s e e Misc. Med., F 414, "Ufizi e cariche per fuori della ritta di Firenze," I72f.; for 1736, see Seg. Gab., F 123c, "Ministero Civile per Ie jusdicenze del dominio Fiorentino," 1-120. 7 New statutes were adopted at Cortona (1543), atLivorno (1544), San Miniato(i546), Anghiari (1550), Empoli (1560), Montepulciano (1561), and elsewhere; see Fasano Guarini, Stato Mediceo, 55.

"3

PART II

lors began, despite local protest, to be appointed in the capital. In 1552 the chancellor of Arezzo, who had previously been an elected "doctor or notary of the place," became a "dottore forestiero" (that is, not of Arezzo) appointed by the duke. The same happened at San Giminiano in 1563, and at Firenzuola, Pieve S. Stefano, and Val di Bagno in 1564. At this point, central appointment seems to have became the general rule. This was protested at Montepulciano in 1563-66, where the com­ munal council at first resisted paying the salary of an appointed chan­ cellor, at Castiglione Fiorentino in 1566, and also at Cortona, where new statutes and the appointment of the chancellor led to a protracted struggle with the Nove. Finally, the confrontation led to ceremonial burning of the communal archive by townspeople in August of 1569.8 The sixteenth-century reforms fell far short of imposing institutional uniformity on provincial communities. Local institutions still varied considerably from place to place, and individual communities pre­ served an array of privileges with regard to taxation, judicial immuni­ ties, and procedures of judicial appeal. But the appointment of the chancellors made them into agents representing the duke, and they be­ came important provincial correspondents of the Nove.9 Municipal autonomies were greatest in the larger towns of the Distretto, where in the eighteenth century "citizens" still claimed noble status equal to the patricians of Florence. Pisa had its own proud com­ munal traditions, as did Volterra, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, Borgo San Sepolcro, and Montepulciano, as well as such smaller towns as Colle and Castiglione Fiorentino. The Reform of 1532 had recognized the privileged status of towns in the Distretto that had previously recog­ nized only the Signoria of Florence, and questions of dispute with these places were reserved to the Magistrato Supremo and the duke.10 Thus the dukes themselves had a special place in the government of the Distretto, and the relationships of these towns with Florence continued to develop through particular arrangements. In fact, it was in the Distretto rather than the Contado that the changes under the Duchy chiefly appeared. The titles ofjustices sent out from Florence changed, almost as if the dukes were attempting to gain allegiance by according 8

Fasano Guarini, "Potere centrale e comumta soggette," 490-538.

9

Ibid., 518.

10

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, 1, 14, ". . . Ie faccende di Volterra, Arezzo, S. Gimi-

niano, Colle e di tutti 1 sudditi che riconoscevano solamente la signoria. . . ."

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

particular honors. Arezzo, Pisa, and Pistoia were raised from the rank of Capitanati to Commissariati in the sixteenth century, and the Commissari were usually Florentine senators. The same happened for Cortona and Volterra at the beginning of the seventeenth century, while Montepulciano, when it became the seat of a bishop in 1561, and later Prato, in the Contado, were raised from the rank of Podesterie to Capitanati.11 The special arrangements for Pisa and Pistoia developed out of the situation of the first years of the Duchy. The arrangements for Livorno, Portoferraio, and other places under the governance of military Commissari of the Bande developed subsequently. Pisa had been conquered by Florence in 1406, and, after its revolt in 1494, was reconquered in 1509. In the fifteenth century Florence had controlled the city through a Capitano, and after 1421 also sent out two other citizens annually, the Consoli di Mare, for the supervision of the port. Under Alessandro De Medici, the Consoli di Mare were supplanted by a special commission, reformed by Cosimo I in 1542, which remained until 1551. Cosimo and his two successors encouraged development of the commerce of Pisa through Livorno and attracted artisans to the city. The duke restored the University of Pisa in 1543, making it the major university of the Duchy. Pisa was exempted from the Florentine guild regulations that forbade the finishing of silk cloth outside of the capital in 1546, and the Order of St. Stephen was established there in 1562. A canal from Pisa to Livorno was completed in 1573, and Francesco I encouraged the leather industry. The local Pisan magistracies, whose selection was partly controlled by the Florentine Commissario, included a General Council, Council of Priors, Monte Pio, and uffiziali for the Onesta and Grascia. In the Council of Priors and in the more select council of Riformatori, where offices were reserved for a restricted group of families in the citizen class, a new orientation of the elite developed toward the Court through entry of Pisans into the Order of St. Stephen.12 The Florentine Commissario was the chief magistrate, the university had its own Auditore and jurisdiction, and the Consoli di Mare served as the commercial court. Other Pisan officials were appointed from Florence " ASF, Manoscntti, F 283, 14, 16, 18, Misc. Med., F 414, 174-75. 12 Luzzati, "La classe dingente di Pisa," 457-67. 115

PART II

as assistants to the Commissario, and for the Dogana, Gabella dei Contratti, Gabella del Sale, and Grascia. Ferdinando I extended the privileges of Pisa still further, so that the city and its territory gradually acquired a degree of local autonomy. Confronted with high grain prices in the 1590s, the duke attempted to encourage agricultural improvement. A new magistracy had been introduced at Pisa in 1495 for drainage of the surrounding marshes. With broader powers, revenue from local taxes, and supervision of communities in the territory of Pisa, this magistracy became the Magistrato dei Fossi in the sixteenth century. Under Cosimo I the local revenues of Pisa and its territory were put under control of the Nove in Florence. But local control was introduced in 1608 through creation of an office at Pisa called the Magistrato dei Surrogati, which, along with the Magistrato dei Fossi, acted to give the city autonomy from the Nove. Other new local offices, the Deputazione sopra Ie coltivazioni del piano di Pisa and the Magistrato di Coltivazione e Fabbriche, had appeared in 1591 and 1601. They were directed partly by Pisans and, with the other Pisan magistracies, helped to preserve a semblance of Pisan independence.13 A similar arrangement developed for Pistoia where the bloody feuds of the Panciatichi and Cancellieri clans from the 1490s were still a problem in the 1530s. In 1490 two Commissari from the capital were associated with the Capitano for Pistoia's internal affairs. Four Commissari were sent out in 1538, but after the magistracies of the city were reinstated in 1545, Florence continued to have a special jurisdiction over Pistoia. This was exercised by the Pratica Segreta, which appointed a Depositario, Auditore Fiscale, and other local officials.14 Livorno grew steadily in size to become the major port of Tuscany, and was made a free port through successive measures of Cosimo I and Ferdinando I. By the 1630s it had surpassed Pisa in size, and by the 1670s Siena, so that in the early eighteenth century it was the second largest city of the ,J

Most recently for Pisa, see Fasano Guarini, "Citta soggette e contadi," 1-94. Also see Mallett, "Pisa and Florence in the Fifteenth Century," 403-41. For its later development, see Braudel and Romano, Nauires et marchandises, 16-31; Repetti, Dizionario, iv, 297f.; BR, Bigazzi, 229. For a list of officials appointed at Pisa, see ASF, Misc. Med., r- 414, 2f. ·' For Pistoia, see Repetti, Dizionario, iv, 40if; ASF, Misc. Med., P 414, 160; BR, Bigazzi, 220. Il6

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

Duchy. Foreign merchants enjoyed exemptions from tolls, Protestant andjewish communities emerged at Livorno, and the dukes continued to develop the port. Livorno was considered part of the Florentine Contado. In 1615 the Capitano was replaced by a fixed military Commissario who was later raised to the rank of governor. It developed a Dogana, Decima, Grascia, Fortezze e Fabbriche, and other officials. The sizeable, important, and wealthy Jewish community acquired its own institutions, and there were other self-governing enclaves of for­ eigners. Military governors or Commissari were also sent to Portoferraio on Elba, to the Isola del Giglio on the coast, and to Fivizzano, a detached ducal territory north of Lucca. Direct control was similarly exercised over ducal fiefs at Pontremoli, Monte San Savino, Castiglione della Pescaia, Pitigliano, Scarsano, and Sorano, where the jus­ tices were appointed directly by the dukes.' 5 But even in privileged cities, the Commissari and Governatori sent out from Florence had ultimate control over the development of local affairs. In the smaller towns of the Contado and Distretto, ducal ap­ pointment a mano was extended to the Florentine citizens who served as provincialjustices. In 1532 the Senate had been empowered to select the Capitani of Pisa, Arezzo, Pistoia, Volterra, Cortona, Castrocaro, and Fivizzano, and the Podesta of Prato, while the remaining justices were intended to be selected through sortition from the borse of the Tratte. In 1551 direct ducal appointment extended to eleven of the fourteen Capitani of the Distretto. In 1604 the three Commissari were appointed a mano, as were eleven of the twelve Capitani, five of the nine Vicari, and two of the twenty-four Podesta. In 1695 appointment ex­ tended still further, and a tendency developed for the Vicari and Po­ desta appointed a mano to be renewed in office at the end of their terms instead of being replaced by others, as the earlier procedure specified, so that terms in office lengthened to several years. The small Podesterie became quite unpopular offices for Florentine citizens, with the result that ducal appointment became exercised de facto through the practice of giving offices a mano after a certain number of refutations of men se­ lected by lot. 16 Selection of citizens for provincial offices by sortition ls

For Livorno, see Mori, "Linee e momenti dello sviluppo"; Repetti, Dizionario, 11,

ηιηΐ. Also ASF, Misc. Med., F414, i72f., Seg. Gab., F 123c, 1 -120. 16 Provincial offices are listed in BNF, mss. Palatino, F 756, 123-33; ASF, Tratte, 1101, Manoscritti F 283, 14 -24, Misc. Med., F 414, I 7 2 f . , Seg. Gab., F 1 2 3 c , 1 -120.

PART II

from the borse of the Tratte persisted mostly in Vicariati and Podesterie of the Contado, where administrative control from Florence was most strongly established. Ducal appointment emerged more clearly in the Distretto, the region where the control of the Republic had been less secure. It was also in the Distretto, and in the territory of Siena, that the new fiefs of the 1620s and 1630s made their appearance. The infeudated vil­ lages were small subcommunities of Podesterie in the hill towns be­ tween Pisa and Volterra, but they often had extensive commons lands that passed into control of the new lords. Several were in the valley of the Era, a region of olive groves and hunting, where five of the seven­ teen communities of the Podesteria of Peccioli became infeudated: Castellina to a branch of the Medici in 1628, Chianni to the Riccardi in 1629, Orciano to the Obizzi of Padova in 1630, Riparbella to the Carlotti of Verona in 1635, and Laiatico and Orciatico to the Corsini in 1644. The acts of infeudation gave rights to the feudal lords to appoint the local justice, to hunt and fish, and to control local administration, in return for payment of communal taxes to the duke at a fixed rate de­ termined at the time of infeudation. The acts contained sonorous legal phrases suggesting broad privileges, for example "mero et misto imperio, gladii potestate, et omnimoda jurisditione," as the patent of the Riccardi at Chianni in 1629 read.17 But the fiefs were in fact carefully regulated within the centralized structure of the provincial administra­ tion. The dukes reserved mining rights and the creation of forges. The holders of fiefs were bound by the existing communal statutes. They could not impose new taxes, feudal justices could appeal to the duke, the fief holder was to maintain a regular notary, and the infeudated communities were to continue to respond to administrative orders from the usual ducal authorities. The chief pecuniary advantages to holders of the fiefs were judicial fines, hunting and fishing rights, and disposal of commons lands.18 To be sure, central control of the Dominion was exercised at a dis­ tance. It involved ordinances sent out from the capital, delays of cor­ respondence, and petitions that were returned. Yet the necessity that Among the successive regulations, see Cantini, LegisIazione Toscana, n, 51 (1549), and 181-82 (1550); iv, 7 (1560); vii, 266-68 (1570); xvi, 10-23 (i627)> ar>d 66-68 (1629). " ASF, Pratica Segreta, F 191, 85ΓΓ. " Pansini, "Per una storia del feudalesimo," 131-86. Il8

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

had obliged Cosimo I to control distant feudal nobles and notables in towns of the Distretto through honors of the Court gave way to a more regular procedure. At an upper level, the secretaries of state and Pratica Segreta stood above the Nove. In the administration of justice, the di­ rection of appeals passed from the Podesta to the Vicari, Capitani, or Commissari, and then to the Otto di Guardia in Florence, or to the Ruota. Municipal Camarlinghi were responsible for tax revenue through local estimi that served for town expenses and for indirect taxes, and the Nove drained every Scudo in excess of what was reserved to pay minimal local expenses to Florence, making it difficult for towns to take independent initiative, and leaving them without resources or in debt.19 An ordinance of Francesco I in 1581 limited provincial ex­ emptions from the Florentine indirect taxes. Local towns were also re­ sponsible for the Tassa del Macinato and the Suggillo del Came of the Farine, for the Gabella dei Contratti, and for the Gabella del Sale.20 For these last two taxes, additional men were employed outside of Flor­ ence. In 1695 the Gabella del Sale maintained a Provveditore and other men at Volterra and at Pisa. The Dogana sent out thirteen Florentine citizens to serve as Doganieri for provincial toll stations, and from thirty to fifty men were appointed for the Dogane of Pisa and Livorno.21 Thejurisdiction of the Capitani di Parte was shared with that of the Nove outside of Florence for roads and waterways, but the Abbondanza and the Grascia acted independently throughout the Domin­ ion.22 At the time of the plague of 1630, the Sanita not only controlled the situation in nearby Prato, in the Contado, but was in contact with local health offices throughout the state. It also organized refuges for Florentines as far away as Monterchi, in the Distretto east of Arezzo.23 19

On the Nove, see ASF, Consulta, F 454. The decadence of provincial town govern­

ment became a large issue in the eighteenth century, as for F. M. Gianni, "Cagioni e progressi dello sbilancio degli mteressi tra la capitale e Ie provincie in Toscana," in ASF, Carte Gianni,

F

48, ins. 554. On this, see Anzilotti, Decentramento amministrativo.

io

ASF, Leggi (Raccolta Tavanti), Affari di Regia Finanza dal 1503 al 1599,

21

For the provincial officials of the Gabella dei Contratti in 1695, see ASF, Misc.

Med.,

F

II,

ins. 61.

413, 447-70; for the Gabella del Sale, see ibid., 609-36; for the Dogana, see ibid.,

147-89, and Misc. Med.,

F

414, if., 98f.

" Note the regulations of 1680 and 1697 in Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xix, 177-82; xxi, 14-30. 23 ASF, Misc. Med.,

F

389, "Notizie, ordini e provvisioni fatti dal Magistrato dalla

Sanita nel tempo del contagio"; Cipolla, Cristofano and the Plague, 33-65.

PART II

Thus in many matters local government was subordinated to the magistracies of the capital. The problems of Siena, the southern third of the Duchy, are indicative of the dominance inevitably assumed by Florence. After its conquest by Cosimo I, Siena remained until 1765 in theory a separate state, but its interests were nonetheless subordinated to those of Florence. Separated from Livorno and the sea, and disfavored by the commercial legislation of the Medici, the industries of the city of Siena developed very little, and by the 1630s there was an outflow of wealth toward Florence.24 The population of the city remained almost stationary. Between the city and massa of its suburbs, it stood at 19,600 in 1559, at 21,400 in 1640, and at 23,000 in 1745, while the smaller town and rural population decreased by nearly 20 percent between the sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries, when the State of Siena was only one-sixth as populous as the Florentine Dominion. 25 Two reforms in 1561 and 1588 made the government almost a duplicate of that of Florence. Under the ducal governor, and the Fiscale, Auditore, and Depositario of the governor's Consulta, citizens of the city were formed into a General Council and a Balia, or Senate. The old executive magistracy of the Sienese Republic remained in the Consistorio and Capitano del Popolo, and these participated in the nomination of citizens for the remaining magistrates. The law courts included a Capitano di Giustizia, Ruota, and Mercanzia, and the finances included the Biccherna, Dogana, Sale and Gabelle, Monte dei Paschi, and a Monte Pio. Four Conservatori dello Stato had jurisdiction over provincial towns in the Sienese state, which was similar to that exercised by the Nove in Florence over the Florentine Dominion. There was a separate Abbondanza and Magistrato dei Pupilli. The selection of magistrates was distributed among the duke in Florence, the ducal governor in Siena, and the chief Sienese magistracies. Appointment to offices in the permanent staff— about one hundred places in 1640 that were not reserved for Sienese nobles—was similarly distributed.26 " Note the balances of the Dogana in ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2064, "Relazione dello stato nel quale si trova la citta di Siena e suo dominio per tutto l'anno 1640." '* Ottolenghi, "Studi demografici," 297-358. The population of the State of Siena was 134,832 in 1596 and 109,648 in 1737; see Del Panta, Una traccia di storia demografica, 56. 26 Marrara, Studi giuridici, 89-175. The permanent staff is described in ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2064. For the sixteenth-century reform of the provincial administration 120

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

There appears to have been a long, three-cornered struggle among the nobles of Siena with the ducal governor, his Consulta1 and the cen­ tral Florentine administration about the extent and nature of the city's autonomy.27 The nobles of Siena differed from those of Florence chiefly in that they were a smaller group. Citizens inscribed in the four Monti qualified for admission to the General Council as reseduti of a college of eight Priori, just as citizens were veduti for the Collegio in the capital, and in 1640 some seven hundred Sienese qualified for offices by this means.28 Among the councils, the Balia of twenty nobles ap­ pointed from Florence was the most important. The Capitano del Popolo and Consistorio were reduced to chiefly ceremonial functions, and the General Council became essentially an electoral body for the lesser magistracies. The Balia was only able to deliberate with the con­ sensus of the governor, although it participated in discussion of legis­ lation, published laws, and preserved a right—disputed by the gover­ nor—to petition the duke in Florence. The Balia thus became the chief focus of local politics, and through it the nobles of Siena resisted any change of the statutes of 1561 and 1588, or any intervention of the mag­ istracies of Florence in the administration of their province. In the view of the Balia, the union between Florence and Siena was merely a per­ sonal one under the duke.29 The first governors of Siena were Florentines experienced in the cen­ tral administration or nobles of the Medici Court: Agnolo Niccolini in 1557, Count Federigo Da Montauto in 1567, Senator Giulio Del Caccia in 1585, Marchese Tommaso Malaspina in 1590, Marchese Lorenzo Salviati in 1606, and Marchese Carlo Gonzaga in 1610. The sixteenthcentury Medici had kept brothers and younger sons of the ducal house distant from power; but in the seventeenth century, from the time of the Regency for Ferdinando II in the 1620s, the government of Siena of Siena, see Fasano Guarini, Stalo Mediceo, 74. The new statutes are published in Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, iv, n6f., and χπ, I24f. 27

Baker, "Nobilta in declinio," 582-616, has traced the decrease in number of Sienese

nobles eligible for offices in the rotating magistracies of the city, although he has not no­ ticed that much the same phenomenon occurred at Siena as at Florence, that is, admin­ istrative duties were taken over by the permanent staff. See also Marrara, Riseduli e nobilti. 28

ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2064, 13. These were 223 casate.

29

Marrara, Studi giuridici, 133-63.

PART II

was reserved for the Medici themselves. Mattias, the brother of Ferdinando II, was made governor in 1629, at the age of sixteen, and except for brief periods he remained in that position until 1667. Francesco Maria, the brother of Cosimo III, served as governor between 1683 and 1711, and Violante Beatrice of Bavaria, the widow of the eldest son of Cosimo III, served as governor between 1716 and 1731.30 Personal gov­ ernment of the Medici may have pleased the Balia and the Sienese no­ bles. But despite their privilege of officeholding in the local magistra­ cies, the Sienese nobles, like those of Florence, were gradually dying out. This, combined with a certain tedium of local politics, undoubt­ edly helped to consolidate power in the governor's Consulta, which was appointed in Florence and responsible to the capital.31 This council consisted of the Auditore of the governor, an office that appeared in 1569, who had cognition of the sentences of the Sienese courts; the Pro­ curator Fiscale, the agent of the Auditore Fiscale in Florence, who ap­ peared in 1561; the Depositario, who was the chief local official of the treasury; and the governor's secretary. These men progressively ab­ sorbed the business of government at Siena, and in the absence of a governor assumed governance of the city between 1603 and 1606, in 1631, in 1667 and 1668, between 1711 and 1716, and again after 1731.32 Considering the ducal bureaucracy as a whole in the relationship be­ tween capital and provinces, it is clear that there was a growth in the number of functionaries outside of Florence as well as in the capital, and that this growth was chiefly in the larger towns; but the prolifera­ tion of functionaries served chiefly to enforce the central control exer­ cised by Florence. At the end of Medici rule the central bureaucracy was of only moderate size, but it was in reality larger than the offices considered here might indicate. Beginning with the central offices in Florence, a rough estimate can be made of the total size of the bureaucracy in about the year 1736, or at least of the number of offices filled from Florence and Siena at this time. In Florence, the total of upper and intermediary-level offices con­ sidered here in particular was 598, of which 115 were rotating offices reserved for citizens in the magistracies, and 483 were filled through the 30

Ibid., 257-61. The number of Sienese noble houses decreased from 259 in 1560 to 107 in 1764; see

Baker, "Nobilta in declinio," 592. 52

Marrara, Studigiuridici, 177-254.

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

Tratte for terms that depended on the beneplacito of the duke. Besides these, there were other offices in the capital that have been omitted from particular consideration, as well as a large number of menial po­ sitions at a lower level. Among these, the guilds were governed by con­ suls or Deputati—some sixty-one positions—and had a subordinate upper or intermediary-level staff of some sixty-nine. 33 The Operai and other officials of Or San Michele, Santa Maria Del Fiore, and the Bigallo also passed through the Tratte—a further seventeen magistrates and eighteen functionaries, bringing the total of central upper and in­ termediary-level offices to some 763. 34 If menial positions at a lower level are added—twelve staffbearers, six flag carriers, six trumpeters, and four bell ringers attached to the Magistrato Supremo; the custodi­ ans, ushers, and guards of other offices; and the porters and warehouse­ men of the Dogana—the size of the central bureaucracy becomes en­ larged by more than half, to some 1,150 men. Many menial positions appear to have been omitted from the list of officeholders for 1736, so that the total of offices in the capital was more likely about 1,200 to 1,300. This is consistent with a census of Florence in 1766 in which oc­ cupations were indicated, when the number of "stipendiati pubblici," excluding the garrisons of the fortresses, was reported to have been 1,355-35

Moving outward to the Dominion and Siena, it is more difficult to make a comprehensive estimate of officeholders, particularly of offices at a lower level. Local municipal officials were not counted, but the number of additional places outside of the capital appears to have been only slightly more than double the number in Florence. The centrali­ zation of administration is striking. Most of the men outside of Flor­ ence were employed as justices or in the staff ofjustices in the provincial towns: four military Commissari; twenty-seven Commissari, Capitani, or Vicari; fifty-five Podesta; and thirty-four notai who served as ufficiali. They were accompanied by some thirty-three additional reg­ ular justices, and 102 lesser notai, a total of 255 men, besides other at­ tendants and guards. Then, seventy or more communal chancellors were appointed with the consensus of the Pratica Segreta, and some » ASF, Seg. Gab , F 123A, 130-220. 34

Ibid., 434-40, 412-27, 428-33.

" Zobi, Storia civile, 11, App. v.

PART II

ninety camarlinghi were elected with the partial consensus of the Nove. In addition, fifty or more men were employed as provincial Doganieri or in the Dogane of Pisa and Livorno. Other functionaries were ap­ pointed in Florence for the government of Pisa and Pistoia.36 This brings the upper and intermediary-level officials in the Dominion to 450-500 men, with probably some 400 or more at a more menial level. For Siena, a sparse list of offices and officeholders in 1743 gives a de­ scription of 84 magistrates and a permanent staff of 89, a total of 173— surely too few—while there were probably an additional 410 men be­ tween citizen justices, notai, chancellors, and camarlinghi in the pro­ vincial towns of the territory of Siena.37 Allowing for men at a menial level, 1,300 to 1,400 outside of the capital seems a reasonably conser­ vative estimate. This brings the total size of the bureaucracy, always omitting municipal officials at a smaller town level, to roughly 2,600 to 2,700 men. To these one might add the ducal Court and its dependen­ cies, the Universities of Pisa and Siena, regular troops of the Bande of the militia, and the Order of St. Stephen, a total of about 3,500.38 Con­ sidered more broadly, the bureaucracy numbered roughly 1,900 upper and intermediary-level officials at Florence, Siena, and the provincial towns, and perhaps some 6,000 if menial level employees are also counted. Since the total population of the Duchy was 894,000 in 1738, the ratio of upper and intermediary level functionaries to total popula­ tion was about one functionary for each 470 inhabitants. A rough esti­ mate of the ratio of royal functionaries to subjects in France in about 1500 might have been about 1 to 1,250, and in 1934 it was 1 to 70. In Prussia about 1770 the ratio may have been about 1 to 450, and in Ger­ many in 1925 it was 1 to 46. In other words, eighteenth-century Tus­ cany had about as many functionaries as eighteenth-century Prussia.39 Thus there had been a significant change in the form of government in Tuscany since the early sixteenth century. There had been, to be sure, magistrates before 1530, and these were assisted by a semiper­ manent staff. But the magistrates of the Republic were many fewer than the functionaries of the Duchy. Most of them did not hold office 3®

ASF, Seg. Gab.,

37

ASF, Reggenza, 232.

3'

BR, Moreniana, 142 -n, 6}{.

39

Mousnier and Hartung, "Quelques problemes concernant la monarchic absolue,"

47, n.i.

F 123c,

1-120.

CENTRAL AND PROVINCIAL OFFICES

on a permanent basis, and they still reflected closely the legal relation­ ship between citizenship and officeholding that had been typical of the government of Italian medieval communes, which also defined the standing of the Florentine patricians. The bureaucratization of Tuscan government developed further after 1737 under the Hapsburg-Lorraine. But long before the eighteenth-century reforms, the rotating of­ fices reserved for citizens in the magistracies of Florence had become but a small part of the central ducal bureaucracy. The communal cor­ porative vestiges of Florentine government had been decisively under­ mined. Still, the emergence of a bureaucracy was less disadvantageous to the interests of the patricians than might be supposed. Their place in the ducal system emerges more clearly when the identity of the new officeholders is considered at closer hand.

PART III

THE PATRICIANS IN THE BUREAUCRACY

THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE MIXED STATE

The changing relationship between magistrates and functionaries was reflected unclearly in the native political thought of Tuscany in the six­ teenth and seventeenth centuries, a result partly of the political calm that descended onto Florence under Cosimo I. The period of the Med­ ici dukes was not a bright one for Tuscan political theory. By the time of Ferdinando I in the 1590s and the publication of works such as Scipione Ammirato's Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito in 1594, there was no longer the conflict and uncertainty, nor were there the dissident groups of politically involved intellectuals who had helped to generate the real­ ism of political thought in the early years of the century.1 In the gen­ eration after Machiavelli and Guicciardini, no writer emerged to de­ scribe the new form of the ducal government with the acuteness of the last generation of Republican writers, and into the eighteenth century there continued to be an ambivalence in theory about the relationship of the patricians to the new offices of the regime. Sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Europe did not have a developed theory of the bureaucratic state, which was perceived within the gen­ eral category of monarchy. In Tuscany there was not even the discus­ sion that developed in seventeenth-century France among jurists, such as Loyseau, on the nature of sovereignty and the constitutional function of corps of officeholders within the absolutistic state. A later result of the French discussion was Montesquieu's view of law, intermediary bodies, and the importance of nobles in balancing the absolute author­ ity of the sovereign, which was an important element in eighteenthcentury constitutionalism.2 1

On Florentine political thought in the transition to the Duchy, see Skinner, Founda­

tions of Modem Political Thought, 1, part 2; Albertini, Firenze dalla repubblica al principato, 280-354; Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini·, Diaz, Il Granducato di Toscana, 206-29. 2

Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, 124-29, 392-419.

PART III

In Florence, theorists of absolutism focused simply on the ruler him­ self. Writers at the end of the Republic had followed the tradition of Ar­ istotle in identifying different types of government, in accordance with the groups that actually held power: the "many" of citizens in repub­ lics, the "few" in aristocracies, or the "one" of a principate or mon­ archy. In discussing officeholders, they made a distinction, in practice, between "Magistrati" (citizens who held office by legal right) and "Ministri" (the administrative servants of the ruler), but they did not give much further attention to the administrative structure of the state. Machiavelli, when discussing the kingdom of Darius in antiquity, for instance, distinguishes between kingdoms governed "by a Prince and his servants (serui), who, as ministers (ministri) by his grace and permis­ sion assist in governing the realm, [and] by a Prince and Barons, who hold their positions not by favor of the ruler but by antiquity of blood." The prince has more power in states governed by himself and servants, because "if [these] are obeyed it is merely as ministers and officials of the Prince."3 Full exercise of sovereignty by the ruler assumed that he had complete control over his ministers. In a description of civic prin­ cipalities, where a citizen has assumed absolute authority by favor of his fellow citizens, he discusses magistrates. Princes "either command themselves, or by means of magistrates. In the latter case their position is weaker and more dangerous, for they are at the mercy of those citi­ zens who are made magistrates, who can, especially in times of adver­ sity, with greater facility deprive them of their position."4 Magistrati, in Machiavelli's view, like barons, occupy an intermediary constitu­ tional position and can limit the prince's authority. But Ministri depend entirely on his will: "A Prince's ministers," he wrote, "are either good or not according to the prudence of the Prince."5 As the structure of Florentine government changed into that of a princely monarchy, native political writers gave further attention to the prince and to the attributes of Ministri. They generally assumed that the ruler enjoyed undivided power and exercised absolute authority. Florentines of the sixteenth century do not seem to have thought the prerogative of patricians to serve as Magistrati was a constitutional 3

The Prince, iv.

4

Ibid., ix.

5

Ibid., xxii.

THE MIXED STATE

check on the duke. As the political ideology of the Duchy, this view grew more out of the advice to princes literature, adulation of the Med­ ici, and understanding of absolute authority of the late fifteenth century than out of the discussion by Giannotti and others of a mixed monarchy as the Duchy was being formed. It became a strong argument for un­ divided princely rule. The point of view was expressed by individuals in the chancery of the Signoria of the late fifteenth century, such as Bartolommeo Scala, and despite Machiavelli's preference for republics it was a central theme of The Prince. 6 The theme was further developed under Cosimo I by writers such as Giovanni Francesco Lottini, a lawyer from Volterra who was employed in the Segreteria di Stato and used by the duke as a diplomatic agent. In 1560 he was made bishop ofVolterra, where he died in 1572. Lottini's Avvedimenti Civili was published in 1574. He was not a writer of particularly great depth, although his views remained typical of Florentines through the seventeenth century. There was, he held, no constitutional check on the authority of the prince, who was guided by reason and justice. But Lottini rejected the Machiavellian proposition that the prince should make himself more feared than loved, and ar­ gued that his actions should bejustified instead by their contribution to the common good, as if the ruler were a member of Plato's Academy: "He is placed by God as guardian of the honest and just"; "He takes the example of his government from the fathers of families"; "When one says the will of the Prince is law [this does not mean] anything he wills, but what he should will"; "Good government is understood to be what is beneficial to the governed, bad [government] what is beneficial to the governors." 7 With regard to officeholders, Lottini distinguished between Magistrati and Ministri as between chance and the exercise of reason. He gives an example by which the Ottimati of the Roman Senate selected 6

On Bartolommeo Scala's political thought, see Brown, Bartolommeo Scala, 329-43. Machiavelli thought reform of government was best carried out by a single legislator, but he favored broad-based republics. He associated monarchy with the existence of a nobil­ ity, and argued in a well known passage (Discourses 1:55) that Tuscany was naturally more suited to republican government than to monarchy "due to the fact that there are in [Tus­ cany] no lords possessing castles, and exceedingly few or no gentlemen"; see Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, 184-85. 7 Lottini, Avvedimenti Civili, pars. 2, 10, 14, 15, 36.

PART III

ambassadors by lot (per sorte) and magistrates by appointment (per elezione), while he says republics generally select magistrates a sorte and ambassadors per elezione ("so that chance should not procure some ig­ norant person"). He defends the Senate by arguing that in this closed body any senator would be a worthy choice. 8 His point was the need to procure effective officeholders, who should be appointed by the prince. It may be advisable to appoint more than one Ministro for a given task so that one will serve as a check on the other. The prince should dis­ tribute tasks with consideration of the personal abilities of different Ministri. It is an honor for valiant men to serve as Ministri in the court of a prince. The prince should not attempt to exonerate the actions of unworthy Ministri. When a person of low extraction becomes chief minister of a prince, his personal bearing becomes less important than the dignity and authority of his office, from which he derives his honor. 9 This idealistic view of a ruler with unrestricted authority acting through Ministri to procure the common good continued to develop through the official historiography of the Medici Court. The vogue for Tacitus of the mid-sixteenth century produced another current favor­ able to absolute monarchy. New translations of Tacitus's Annals about Rome after Augustus were published in Florence by Giorgio Dati in 1563 and by Bernardo Davanzati in 1596. Florentine historians of the early years of the Duchy, such as Jacopo Nardi and Filippo De Nerli, depicted the transition from republic to principate as a process by which the Medici, like Augustus, had risen above the factions and con­ tradictory aims of patrician Ottimati to restore civil tranquility and the common good. 10 But ultimately the view of absolute monarchy be­ came highly Christianized through a renewed association of the aims of the state with religion. The last of the sixteenth-century historians was Scipione Ammirato, a Neapolitan intellectual who became the Court historian of Cosimo I in 1569 and survived as arbiter of the Accademia Fiorentina through the reigns of Francesco I and Ferdinando I until his death in 1601. His Istorie fiorentini, of which the second part was published after his death, ended ® Ibid., par. 90. » Ibid., pars. 75, 77, 79, 82, 87. 10 Albertini Firenze dalla repubbltca al principato, 314—29. 1

THE M I X E D STATE

with a eulogy on the death of Cosimo I. Ammirato's major work, the Discorsi sopra Cornelio Tacito of 1594, was a treatise on politics in the form of a commentary on Tacitus. Ammirato is generally thought to have been a figure of importance in elaboration of the theory oiragione di stato. Like Lottini, he was a proponent of government by a prince with absolute authority who acts for the common good. He also held that the actions of the prince should be in accordance with existing un­ derlying law, and that the princely state must serve the best interests of religion. In discussion of the ragione di stato Ammirato envisioned a hi­ erarchy of qualities of rationality proceeding upward from natural or civic reason. The ragione di stato of the prince, he thought, would serve as a correction of the lower qualities of rationality, but was itself subject to regulation and correction by a still higher reason, that is, by divine law: "Ragione di stato" he wrote, "is no other than correction of ordi­ nary law, for the public good, or with regard to greater and more uni­ versal reason." 11 The sixteenth-century writers set the tone for Florentine political thought through the seventeenth century. In comparison with the po­ litical discourse of the last period of the Republic, the discourse of the Duchy was highly abstract. Little attention was given to the function­ ing of institutions or to the actual personnel of the regime. "Ministers are higher or lower, and depend not only from the ruler, but also from superior ministers, and one kind or the other must be gifted with four qualities by nature: intelligence, judgment, prudence, and memory," wrote the Sienese Lelio Maretti in a conventional manner in his Com­ li pendia politico of about 1600. Three types of persons act together in the state, wrote Antonio Maria Cospi, secretary of the Otto di Guardia, in his Il giudice criminalista of 1633: those who command, "the role of Princes, Councillors of State and other intimates of the Prince"; "Ministri," who "are like the spiritual part of this great body, while seeing to observance of the laws they seem to give life to the other limbs"; and artisans and peasants, who have no part in government but provide for " D e Mattei, Il pensiero politico di Scipione Ammirato, 124. Further on Ammirato, see Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 95-161, and Church, Richelieu and Reason of State, 66-67. " Lelio Maretti, "Compendio politico, Ovvero direttione ad ogni Principe ο Ministro per ben governar Ii Stati," in Folger Library, Strozzi Transcripts. 133

PART III

life and survival.13 The political writings of such seventeenth-century erudites as Francesco Magalotti were void of any description of the ac­ tual government of Tuscany. "We are not so simple as to believe," Magalotti wrote in an unfinished treatise of the 1680s entitled Concordia della religione e del principato, "that the weakness of most princes is to be too devout, and their greatest problem to be too much attached to acts of piety, and religion."14 This weakness of theory was undoubtedly one reason for the lack of clarity with which both contemporaries and later historians have viewed the relationship of social groups to the institutions of the Duchy. If only the prince was presumed to have authority, it was pos­ sible to disregard the subordinate personnel of the regime. If the myth of Venice was its mixed constitution, the myth of Florence became its absolute prince. "The Senate and Council of 200," one eighteenth-cen­ tury senator wrote, "in the course of centuries, and even in the first pe­ riod of their inception, have never given the slightest difficulty, either directly or indirectly, to the ruling house . . . and the Senate might even be said to have been instituted purposely to further the consoli­ dation of absolute monarchy."15 Interest became focused on the ruler to the expense of any other group that might have been held to have influ­ ence, a weakness in perception of the nature and operation of ducal ab­ solutism that has become a part of native tradition. But when one considers the identity of officeholders it becomes clear that the political theory of the Duchy obscures a quite significant and important relationship of patricians to the bureaucracy, which signifi­ cantly affected the nature of the ducal government. In the sixteenth century there was, to be sure, a relative increase in importance of Ministri over the Magistrati, and in the relatively obscure social origin of many Ministri under the first dukes this was in accord with contem­ porary conceptions of the anonymity of agents of the prince. But this situation changed in the seventeenth century when the patricians aban­ doned the magistracies and invaded the permanent offices of the new bureaucracy. The elite gradually changed from being Magistrati to being Ministri, thus helping to preserve their political influence, and to '3 Quoted in Fasano Guanni, "I giunsti e Io stato," i, 244 Cochrane, "Failure of Political Philosophy," 572. J5 Giulio Rucellai on the Senate in A S F , Consulta, F 459.

14

THE MIXED STATE

infuse the ducal regime, despite the seeming change from city-state to regional Duchy, with a policy that persistently favored the interests of the capital. The Tratte lists that were used to trace the growth of the bureaucracy make it possible to assess the changing social identity of functionaries in quantitative terms. But measurement of the social identity of office­ holders requires precise definition of the elite and also careful distinc­ tion of the relative importance of offices of different types and at dif­ ferent levels. As was noted in Part I, the Florentine patricians were not a closed body under the Republic, and the Medici dukes further under­ mined their corporative solidarity. Whereas at Venice, with the excep­ tion of a few newcomers in the seventeenth century, the Consiglio Maggiore always contained the same group of hereditary nobles, at Florence the Senate and Council of 200, although made up mostly of patricians, were always open to new men. There were also different so­ cial groups within the elite. The officeholding group of the fifteenth century had excluded magnati who were not represented in the priorate. In the sixteenth century, newcomers emerged at the Medici Court. The Libri di Oro of the eighteenth century made still further distinctions of standing. It is difficult to assess the patricians as a group over time with the criteria of any one period exclusively. To trace the later fortunes of houses prominent as priors of the Republic would exclude "nobles" of the fifteenth century who had been outside of the officeholding group, and ignore new nobles who rose to prominence at the Medici Court. To trace the earlier fortunes of families registered as patricians or nobles in the eighteenth-century Libri di Oro would ignore old houses from the Republic that had disappeared from the city before the eighteenth century, and give excessive prominence to newcomers. Still, measurement of the social recruitment of the bureaucracy makes it necessary to identify a specific group of families to represent the elite in its changing situation through time. To do this, an amalgam has been made between houses prominent as priors in the fifteenth cen­ tury and houses registered as patrician or noble in the eighteenth-century Libri di Oro. To distinguish old from new, houses that proved pa­ trician or noble status in the eighteenth century were separated into three groups on the basis of the proofs of nobility they submitted to the deputation administering the law of 1750: (1) old houses of patricians who had appeared as priors at least four times in the fifteenth century;

PART I I I T A B L E 7-1 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 1DENTIFIED PATRICIAN

P+ 4

Patricians from Priorate

PR

MAG

ANCC

426

Houses from Libn di Oro

133 (32)

Adjusted group from Libri di Oro

196 (40)

45 (H)

IO (2)

ELITE SEN

ORSS

FTIT

EXT

PAT

246

(58)

133 (31)

I24

156

(29)

(37)

33 (8)

26

126

13

(30)

254 (60)

64

(6)

(15)

(3)

64 (Π)

(14)

45

IO

26

I6l

266

(9)

(2)

(5)

(33)

(55)

69

NOB

TOTAL

426 (IOO)

293 (70)

(30)

293 (61)

(26)

128

128

421 (IOO)

484 (IOO)

NOTE: Numbers in parentheses are percentages KEY. P + 4 = Four or m o r e priors in the 15th century, PR = O t h e r priors; MAG = Magnati, A N C C = Ancient citizens; SEN — Senators; ORSS = Knights of St. Stephen; FTIT = Fief or title, EXT = Extinct m male line before 1750; PAT = Patrician in Libn di O r o , NOB = N o b l e in Libn di O r o

(2) old houses registered as "patrician" who demonstrated that they had standing under the Republic, although they had not been priors or had appeared less frequently as priors in the fifteenth century; and (3) newcomers since 1530 who proved patrician or noble status in the eighteenth century through other claims to noble standing. This helps to capture the changing composition of the elite: 196 old houses from the fifteenth-century priorate that were still present in the eighteenth century, 84 old houses with other claims to standing at the time of the Republic, and 202 new families established since 1530. For brevity and clarity, I will refer to them as old patricians frequently priors, old pa­ tricians less frequently priors, and new patricians and nobles. This has the advantage of defining the elite in terms that would have been ac­ cepted by contemporaries, but is still weighted toward families existing in the eighteenth century. To compensate for the extinction of families from the Republic, 63 houses appearing as priors four times or more in the fifteenth century, which had succeeded in establishing themselves at the Court through the Senate or Order of St. Stephen but had dis­ appeared before 1750, were added to the older patricians. The characteristics of the three groups are shown in Table 7.1. It should be emphasized that the families in this "identified elite" are but a conservative approximation of the Florentine patriciate as a whole. The group is reasonably complete for comparison with the lists of of­ ficeholders in 1695 and 1736, but is less complete for comparison with the lists of 1551 and 1604. Houses from the fifteenth-century priorate 136

THE MIXED STATE

who did not appear later as senators or Knights of St. Stephen and did not survive to be registered as patricians, may have lost status, become impoverished, emigrated from Florence, or died out. Many other houses from the time of the Republic that might later have qualified as patricians less frequently priors shared a similar fate. The new patricians and nobles were houses that had established themselves since 1530, but here many families who were important temporarily at the Court and then disappeared from the city are missing. Officeholders not identified as nobles were, of course, of quite diverse origins: "citizens" of Florence, inhabitants of the city who were not citizens, notaries, lawyers, unidentified nobles, and non-Florentines. Assessment of the relative importance of offices of different types and levels presents further problems, for some positions were clearly of greater importance than others. Below the level of the ducal secretaries and men in the Pratica Segreta it is difficult to identify the chiefly responsible officials. Although a change in precedence between citizen magistrates and permanent officeholders was clearly emerging, there were no fixed grades of offices in the permanent staff. The soprintendenti, certain segretari, and the provveditori of different magistracies gradually assumed a more directional role. Distinctions of rank have been made on the basis of indications contained in the lists of officeholders and from the order in which offices were listed. For instance, in 1695 the office of Soprassindaco of the Nove, one of the officials of the Pratica, was described "one of the most authoritative and noble [charges] conferred by the Padrone Serenissimo, since through his hands pass the selections of all the chancellors [of the Dominion] and many other ministers, the disposition of Luoghi Pii, . . . and in general all that concerns the economy and good order of the [provincial] communes." 16 The secretary of the Otto di Guardia "with the Auditore of the Bande dispatches all criminal acts."17 The provveditori of different offices, the men chiefly responsible for financial arrangements, generally had a special place. The Provveditore of the Monte Comune was described as "the most regarded and honored of all the [Provveditori] . . . the office requires a man of prudence, authority, and practice in 16

ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 657. " Ibid., 725. 137

PART III

public affairs."18 The office of Provveditore of the Gabella dei Contratti was an "important charge for the interests of Sua Altezza Serenissima, since this minister collects and makes effective the Gabelle. A person of esteem, spirit, and intelligence should be sought."19 The office ofProvveditore of the Abbondanza "requires a prudent man and also one prac­ ticed in commerce, because of the provisions of foodstuffs that have to be made."20 Accordingly, more important upper-level positions have been dis­ tinguished from the lesser, intermediary-level ones, while menial-level employees, such as custodi, donzelli, and tavolaccini, have been omitted from consideration. Offices were also ranked roughly into three grades by size of salary for the purpose of a minor tax on salaries in 1659, and distinctions of rank and precedence were made for ceremonial occa­ sions such as the annual feast of S. Giovanni Battista, the patron of Florence, when the dukes received annual homage from feudal nobles and delegations from the subject towns. 21 On these occasions soprintendenti, certain segretari, and theprovveditori were consistently given a spe­ cial place. The participation of the two groups of older patricians, the new pa­ tricians and nobles, and men who were not in the identified elite, in the magistracies, fixed boards, and upper and intermediary-level perma­ nent offices is shown in Table A.2 of Appendix A. An advantage of bas­ ing the definition of the elite largely on the houses registered in the eighteenth-century Libri di Oro is that these contain genealogies, which can be checked from other sources and provide a basis for assur­ ing that the family identifications have been correct.22 Between magis­ trates and Ministri, 74 percent of the officeholders can be identified in 18

Ibid., 527.

19

Ibid., 449.

20

Ibid., 5.

" A S F , Consults,

F

24, 26 Sept. 1659. For the precedence of officeholders attending

feasts of S. Giovanni Battista, see .ASF, Monte Graticole,

F

4, 90-96.

" In addition to the genealogies in the Libri di Oro and the Decima tax accounts of many families, the numerous detailed genealogies in the collection of ASF Carte Sebrigondi, served to identify officeholders. Not all names of the permanent officeholders are known from the lists, and it was necessary to assume that the men most recently ap­ pointed were the ones actually in office in 1695

an d

1736. The rotating magistrates are

those for the first term of the year, and their names have been taken from the registers of instrinseci of the Archive of the Tratte.

THE MIXED STATE

1551, 78 percent in 1604, 83 percent in 1695, and 89 percent in 1736. 23 It is important to remember that the tables show the proportions of of­ fices occupied by different groups rather than the number of office­ holders, thus double counting men holding more than one office at once, a problem that will be considered separately. However, men holding office ex officio have been counted only in their chief-ranking places. Percentages are the proportions of offices for which the occu­ pant is known. From the totals for the bureaucracy as a whole it is evident that the participation of all types of nobles, despite the progressive expansion in number of offices, remained relatively constant over the whole period. Patricians and nobles of various types held 51 percent of the offices in 1551, 47 percent in 1604, 45 percent in 1695, and 44 percent in 1736. There was a decrease in the participation of older patricians who were frequently priors from nearly half of the offices in 1551 to a quarter in 1736, which can be adduced partly to the gradual disappearance of houses from the older elite. As older families disappeared there was a corresponding increase in participation of patricians less frequently priors, and of new patricians and nobles, although still in 1736 the older patricians were the largest group. But of equal significance was the progressive relocation of patricians by type of office. Here it is useful to compare the relative position of the different groups in 1551 and 1604 with their position in 1695 and 1736. For the whole period, older patricians tended to be particularly prominent in the rotating magistracies, a situation, as we shall see, that depended partly on their place in the Senate. But whereas they ac­ counted for three-quarters of the offices in the magistracies in 1551 and 1604, by 1695 and 1736 their participation had decreased to one-half or less. In the permanent offices their participation at an intermediary level was always less than their participation in the magistracies, and re­ mained about the same or decreased slightly with time. The most im­ portant change was in the higher-ranking permanent offices. Ifthe elite 23 The identification of officeholders in 1551 is incomplete in the upper councils be­ cause Auditori of the Pratica Segreta, a board with as yet unfixed membership and almost all non-nobles, have been counted in their lesser positions; the names of Auditori of the Ruota in the law courts, also non-nobles, are lacking; and in the finances and the general administration certain Provveditori are missing. The list of Petnni and other available documentation for 1551 reflect the shifting nature of the administration at this point.

PART III

had predominated in the magistracies in the sixteenth century, they had had very little participation in the permanent offices at an upper level, which were occupied chiefly by non-nobles. By the end of the seven­ teenth century, however, they had moved into the boards of permanent magistrates and particularly into the higher-ranking permanent offices, where they came to predominate. Here the ducal system gave them their new place.

THE RELOCATION OF THE PATRICIANS BY TYPE OF OFFICE

The relocation of the patricians can best be followed through different types of offices and in different sectors of the bureaucracy, for the elite settled more easily into some areas than into others. The whole period was one in which rotating magistrates were declining in relative im­ portance, and thus it does not seem surprising that the rotating offices became progressively of less interest to patrician office seekers. In ad­ dition, the social distance between "nobles" and "citizens" in the scru­ tinies for the magistracies widened, an anomaly between patrician sen­ ators and lesser citizens that evoked comment at the time of the creation of the Libri di Oro in the eighteenth century. The permanent offices, on the other hand, became of obviously greater value as extensions of honors of the Court. Here there was more continuous service, more influence in the direction of affairs, and as we shall see, progressively better remuneration. These contrasts were undoubtedly important in determining the patricians new objective. The Falling Status of Magistrati

The increasing social distance between nobles and mere citizens ap­ pears very clearly in the changing identity of magistrates. The Senate remained the chief bastion of the older patricians frequently priors, and the appointment of senators from well-established houses was clearly one of the expected rituals of Florentine life. An anonymous memoran­ dum from the 1730s expressed this as a basic liberty. The reform of 1532, it stated, had required that senators be "noble" Florentine citizens appointed from the Council of 200. The original senators of 1532 had been "subjects of the most selected and favored nobility of the city of Florence without any mixture of persons from without who had not enjoyed the first honors of the Republic." The senators appointed by Cosimo I were "all of the first nobility of Florence, except Lelio Torelli,

PART III

noble of Fano [and previously] admitted to Florentine citizenship." Ferdinando I "did not appoint to the said dignity [anyone] outside of the Florentine nobility besides Paolo Vinta, and after his death Belissario his brother, nobles of Volterra." Cosimo III "at different times created 135 senators, among them a few non-Florentine nobles . . . , but these were elected when they held the honorable office of Auditore Generale of Siena."1 Indeed, of the 634 men made senators between 1532 and 1736, 91 percent were from the group of older patricians from the Republic, and 82 percent were houses that had been priors four times or more in the fifteenth century. Thirty-three senators, or 5 percent, were in the "other" category, that is, they did not belong to houses in the identified group. These men included some old houses, such as the Del Bene, who had not survived for long under the Duchy; houses of ducal sec­ retaries such as Concini, Torelli, Usimbardi, and Vinta, who did not establish lasting dynasties, and a few houses of notables from pro­ vincial towns. But most of these families appeared in the Senate only once. By contrast, houses of patricians from the priorate appeared re­ peatedly: in all, twenty-seven men from the cluster of Capponi fami­ lies, nineteen Strozzi, thirteen Ginori, twelve Guicciardini, eleven Niccolini, Gondi, Acciaiuoli, Altoviti, and Ridolfi, and ten Nerli and Salviati. The identity of senators determined the identity of many magis­ trates, because of the reserved places in the magistracies for senators. But still, there was a significant change in the social identity of magis­ trates through the entry of non-noble citizens into the group of citizens approved through the scrutinies, and gradually even the participation of senators decreased. In 1551 and 1604 about 25 percent of the magis­ trates were senators, half were patricians or nobles, and 25 percent were non-nobles. By 1695 and 1736 only 15-20 percent were senators, 3540 percent were other patricians or nobles, and the participation of nonnobles had increased to 40-44 percent. One can follow the entry of newcomers through the general scruti­ nies of officeholders, which were intended to renew the borse of citizens eligible for selection. "[This grace] is distributed with a prodigious hand," read the ducal Banda that announced the general scrutiny of ' ASF,

Misc. Med., F 34, ins. 15, "Relazione istorica del senato fiorentino."

THE RELOCATION OF PATRICIANS

1610, "not only to the end of restoring by the admission of new citizens the deficit that from time to time occurs of families that become ex­ tinct, but also in consideration of benefit to the public."2 Selection through the scrutinies could also lead to the visto di Collegio that con­ ferred the right to be included as benefiziato in subsequent scrutinies. A summary of regulations of the Tratte of 1595 describes minutely the general scrutiny of 1593, and the procedure changed little thereafter.3 A committee of three senators for each of the sixteen gonfaloni of the city solicited names of members of families and their sons down to age five who already had the benefizio of the Collegio, along with new cit­ izens who qualified through payment of the Decima and residence of thirty years or more. In practice, very few new citizens were accepted for inclusion in the borse by the scrutinizing commission. But the dukes could also bypass the regular scrutinizing process by habilitating citi­ zens for office con privilegio, a recourse that was used from time to time.4 The fact that the Tratte did not keep lists of citizens from decade to decade but referred instead to the votes recorded when the different borse were made up, makes it difficult to tell at any given point in time exactly how many "old" and how many "new" citizens there were. But the register of names of "new" citizens who had acquired the benefizio of selection for the Collegio contains the names of some 4,700 individ­ uals between 1530 and 1772 whose descendants were subsequently counted as benefiziati in the scrutinies.5 (The trend in appearance of these newcomers was discussed in Chapter 2.) Relatively few new men were made eligible for the Collegio in the first years of the Duchy, but then an increasing number became eligible beginning with the scrutiny of 1563. Therewerefurtherscrutiniesin 1578, 1593, 1611, 1628, 1645, 1661, 1682, 1702, 1734, and 1758, generally years when many new men were veduti di Collegio.6 The largest number, an average of some thirty yearly, appeared between 1610 and 1670. 2

Cantim, Legislazione Toscana, xiv, 354-55 ASF, Tratte, ρ not, 4iff. For the procedure in 1735, see ASF, Tratte, F 545. 4 Judging from ASF, Tratte, F 1136, cittadini con privilegio were about 8 percent of the total over the whole period. 5 ASF, Tratte, F 1136, "Specchietto delle famighe che hanno acquistate Io stato dal principato in qua." This appears to have been compiled about 1697-98. 6 For 1593, see the description in ASF, Tratte, F 1101; for 1611, see Cantim, LegislaJ

PART III

In ordinary circumstances, admission to the magistracies as veduti of the Collegio required more than thirty years of residence in the city. This meant that the new men of the early to mid-seventeenth century were the remnants, in harder times, of the city's late sixteenth-century population growth. Most of the new citizens of the seventeenth cen­ tury did not later have descendants in the Libri di Oro, either because they did not remain permanently in Florence or because they were fam­ ilies of quite modest standing and means. The notations written in 1604 in the "Note e Informazioni" of the Tratte beside the names of men being proposed as novellini for the ν isto di Collegio provide indications of their station: "Piero di Martino Martucconi, described [for taxes] in 1592. He pays, with three brothers who have been visti, 11 Florins, 15 Soldi, and 6 Denari [of Decima]. They have a large shop of foreign merchandise at the Canto Del Giglio, are well off, and in good stand­ ing." Another group of brothers were "Cosimo, Cambio, and Lorenzo di Messer Lorenzo Bamberini, described in 1575, pay 6 Florins, 13 Soldi, 3 Denari, and are artisans in the wool guild, Cosimo for the Giacomini, Cambio for Ridolfo Delia Stufa, and Lorenzo for Giovanni Maria Fettini, all well established."7 In 1650 the new men included "Lorenzo di Messer Giovanbattista Chimentelli, described in 1625. He pays Decima of 6 Soldi, 9 Denari of Florins, and is employed in the [of­ fice of the] Farine, an upright youth." Also, "Cesari di Bastiano Brunacci, described in 1648, [who] pays Decima of 10 Florins, 1 Soldo, 8 Denari, and thus should be kept in mind, he is the Chancellor of the Auditore of the Bande."8 In 1695 the newcomers included "Giuseppe Maria, Giovanni, and Giuseppe Terzi, the first and second wholesalers with their own business, and the third, an accountant. They have been citizens [described for taxes] since 1594, and pay 2 Florins of Decima."9 These were middling merchants, men employed in the businesses of others, notaries, and lesser functionaries—middle-class Florentines in the years of the city's long, seventeenth-century depression. Their tax assessments are quite small in comparison with moderately endowed zione Toscana, xiv, 354-55; for 1628-34, see ASF, Tratte, F 575, "Squittinio generale degli anni 1628, 1645, 1661, 1682, 1702, 1735"; for 1758, see ASF, Tratte, F 1114, "Squit­ tinio generale per l'anno 1758." 7 ASF, Tratte, F 629, "Note et informazioni," 419. 8 ASF, Tratte, F 662, "Note et informazioni," 96. 9 ASF, Tratte, F 686, "Note et informazioni," 184.

THE RELOCATION OF PATRICIANS

patrician senators who might have a palace in Florence and two or three farms in the countryside assessed for the Decima at least at 30 to 40 Florins. In 1690, under Cosimo III, the necessity of owning a house in Florence and maintaining residence there was dropped as a preliminary requirement for establishing new citizenship, leaving only the requirement of owning property assessed for the Decima at two Florins, and even this could be waived in favor of a two-Florin poll tax.10 It is difficult to discover the patricians' view of these new men, but it was probably still reflected in a complaint of Pompeo Neri of the 1740s: "The names of artisans made citizens only a few days previously are entered into the same horse as those of families inscribed as citizens for many centuries. . . old and new, poor and rich, have access to the same magistracies, and seat themselves in the same seats, without any order of precedence, . . . all are reputed equally noble."11 Some writers accused the Medici of having demeaned the status of Florentine citizenship. Giovan Francesco Pagnini, a "new" Florentine patrician from an established family of Volterra, also writing in the 1740s, thought the regulation of the property qualification for citizenship in 1690 had "filled the books with names of citizens, who, lacking substance and sufficient means to maintain themselves decorously, not only diminish the consideration Florentine citizenship once had, but vilify it in the minds of many."12 With the entry of newcomers, participation of the older families in the magistracies decreased, and their withdrawal was not much compensated for by the entry into office of "noble" newcomers later inscribed in the Libri di Oro. In the first term for 1551 and 1604, older patricians occupied three-quarters of the places in the magistracies, but in the first term of 1695 and 1736 their participation had fallen to half or less. Meanwhile, the participation of new patricians and nobles had increased to 12 percent, and the participation of non-nobles had increased to 44 percent so that it equaled the participation of the older group. Much the same was true of the judgeships filled by Florentines in the provincial towns. Here, a different appointment procedure makes the names of officeholders selected a mano by the duke difficult to trace, IO

Pagnini, Delia Decima, 1, 72-73. " Neri, Nobilta Toscana, 602. 12 Pagnini, Delia Decima, 1, 73; on the Pagnini, see Spreti, Encyclopedia nobiliare, v, 39.

145

P A R T III since when this occurred the names of the officeholders were not re­ corded in the lists of estrinsici from the Tratte. The older patricians con­ tinued chiefly as Commissari and Capitani of the larger towns of the Distretto, Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, Volterra, offices generally reserved for senators, where they occupied 71 percent of the places in 1551 and 38 percent in 1736. But among the Vicari, in the lesser towns, the appearance of the older group fell from 60 and 42 percent in 1551 and 1604 to 55 and 17 percent in 1695 and 1736. A still more dramatic decrease occurred among Podesta in the smaller towns—from 55 and 51 percent to 14 and 4 percent. Overall, counting Commissari, Capitani, Vicari, and Podesta, patricians frequently priors in the fifteenth century held 53 percent of the seventy-three identified positions in 1551, 41 percent of the eighty-three in 1604, 22 percent of the seventytwo in 169s, and 13 percent of the seventy-seven in 1736. The propor­ tion of non-nobles rose from 41 percent in 1551 to 49 percent in 1604, 71 percent in 1695, and 81 percent in 1736. Patricians continued to go out to the more important offices in the larger towns of the Distretto, but even while their landed estates spread farther and farther from the capital, it was always to Florence that they returned, and in Florence that they envisioned their political role. They abandoned the smaller towns where the lesser judgeships involved inconvenient absences from the capital, the tedium of the countryside, little honor, and the least remuneration. These lesser offices were the ones that new citizens who were recently habilitated in the scrutinies increasingly conquered. The Rising Status of Ministri As the older patricians transformed themselves into nobles of the Court, their alternative to rotating offices in the magistracies became the new permanent offices of the bureaucracy. Here, officeholdmg took on greater honor, more influence in the management of affairs, and steadier employment in a period when other opportunities were not expanding in the city. Thus, as the social status of Magistrati fell, the social status of Ministri gradually rose. Employment of patricians in the permanent staff of the magistracies was not an entirely new phenomenon—the Republic had opened routes both as Magistrati and as Ministri to citizens seeking a political career—but the offices in the staff of the magistracies had a secondary place. One remembers that Niccolo Machiavelli, in the second chan-

THE RELOCATION OF PATRICIANS

eery of the Signoria from 1498 to 1512, had belonged to an important established citizen house, although to a lesser branch that was frustrated in its political advancement. Some other names of houses prominent in the priorate appear in the chanceries of the Signoria and in lesser magistracies.13 But there also had been a vibrant subculture of notaries and lawyers in Renaissance Florence who occupied many places in the permanent staff. The route to offices through training in law was attractive to men in the elite as well, and lawyers enjoyed high social status in the fifteenth century, ranking after knights. Matriculation as notai could be disadvantageous, since from the 1430s onward notaries were barred from office in the Signoria, and into the 1560s a distinction was made between cittadini and cittadini notai in the borse for the magistracies.14 Notaries were required to designate whether their names would be entered into the borse of "citizens" for offices, or into a separate borsa of cittadini notai, and many offices were filled from the second group. 15 Thus the patricians contributed some men to the permanent functionaries of the first years of the Duchy, but most were not members of the elite. In the offices close to the duke, no ancestors among the ten secretaries of Cosimo I in 15 51 can be identified among priors of the Republic, although six were lawyers and two were notai. These included Lorenzo Pagni, a lawyer from Pescia; Jacopo Guidi and Vincenzo Ricciobaldi, lawyers of Volterra; and Ser Giovanni Conti, who had begun his career as a notary in the provincial town of Bucine. Cosimo I employed non-patricians in other places of trust, particularly among the Auditori and other high officials in the Pratica Segreta. In 1604, under Ferdinando I, the displacement of patricians toward the higher offices had begun, although the choice of men in the Secreteria di Stato and among Auditori was still similar to what it had been in 1551. With the appearance of sons or nephews of the agents of Cosimo I, one can see the beginnings of formations of dynasties of non-patrician functionaries. The Auditore della Camera, Giovanbatista Concini, 13 Note Marzi, Cancelleria, 483-514, for the occasional patrician surnames in the Cancelleria of the Signoria. 14 On the Arte del Giudici e Notai in the fifteenth century and the political role of lawyers and notaries, see Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 11-115 et passim. ,s Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 47-51. For the repeal of the statute of 1496 in 1563, see ASF, Tratte, F 1101, 43.

147

PART III

was the son and successor in office of Bartolommeo Concini, a notary of Terranuova in the vicinity of Arezzo who had begun his career in the chancery of the Riformagioni in 1544· Later he also served as a diplomatic agent abroad. One son of Giovanbattista Concini became a favorite of Marie De Medici and acquired the title Marechal D'Ancre in France, the other son was made a senator.16 Ducal secretaries under Ferdinando I included the clan of the Usimbardi from Colle: Pietro, Lorenzo, and Usimbardo. Their influence lasted into the 1630s.17 Still, when one continues to examine the lists of officeholders, it is clear that some important offices were occupied by patricians from the early years of the Duchy. The Depositario Generale, the chief official of the treasury, was consistently a patrician from the appointment of Ottaviano De Medici in 1537, as was the Soprassindaco of the Nove from the creation of this office in 1559.18 The secretaries of the Tratte were patricians steadily from the time of the appointment of Senator Lorenzo Niccolini in 1592 to succeed Piero di Giovanni Conti, the son of the secretary of the Tratte under Cosimo I. In the law courts, the finances, and the general administration, a definite pattern of patrician involvement developed. Very few older patricians were employed in the law courts. Not only the Auditori in the Pratica Segreta, but also the Auditori of the Ruota, the justice of the Mercanzia, the Auditore Fiscale, and the secretary of the Otto were generally non-nobles, as were most of the lawyers and notai employed elsewhere in the bureaucracy. This followed the practice of the Republic, when employment of foreign justices was required to assure an appearance of impartiality ofjustice. The place of the patricians in the law courts was chiefly in the rotating magistracies attached to the Otto di Guardia, Mercanzia, Onesta, and Conservatori di Leggi, and among the Sindaci of the Ruota, the men who annually reviewed the conduct in office of the Auditori of the Ruota. The more accustomed place of patrician officeholders was in the administration of the finances, where they were of special importance. In 1551, 85 percent of offices held by the two groups of older patricians, and 66 percent in 1604, were upper or intermediary-level offices in the 16

On the Concini, see Litta, Famiglie celebri, 11, fasc. 14. On the Usimbardi, see the notices in G. E. Saltini, "Istona del Granduca Ferdinando i." 367-70· " In 1604 these were Vincenzo De Medici and Donato Dell' Antella. 17

148

THE RELOCATION OF PATRICIANS

finances, and this pattern continued through the seventeenth century. In 1551 only two men from this group had upper-level offices in the finances: Senator Cristofano Rinieri, the Provveditore of the Monte Comune; and Chiarissimo di Bernardo De Medici, the Provveditore of the Monte di Pieta. But in 1604, older patricians held seven of the ten upper-level offices. Among these were Lanfranco Lanfredini, the Provveditore of the Monte Comune; Simone Franceschi, the Provveditore of the Monte di Pieta; and Raffaello Niccolini, Onofrio Bracci, and Giovanfrancesco Carnesecchi, the Provveditori of the Decima, Farine, and Capitani di Parte. Patricians also held a large number of offices at an intermediary level in the fisc, where they were employed as segretari, camarlinghi, sotto-provveditori, and ajuti. Younger men particularly were likely to be employed in the intermediary-level offices, from which some advanced later to places of greater importance. But it was chiefly in the seventeenth century that the patricians effected their conquest of the bureaucracy. They became established among the ducal secretaries during the 1640s under Ferdinando II. Earlier, all the first secretaries had been non-nobles, the last being Andrea Cioli between 1626 and 1641. Giovanbatista Gondi, who had earlier been ambassador in France, became first secretary in 1641 and stayed in office until his death in 1664, while in 1644 Cavaliere Domenico Pandolfini replaced Alessandro Nomi, a non-noble, as Segretario di Guerra. In 1653, besides Gondi and Pandolfini, three other patricians were listed in the Court roll of secretaries: Pierfrancesco De Ricci, Alessandro De Cerchi, and Jacopo Biffi-Tolomei. After the death of Gondi, the office of first secretary remained vacant until the appointment of another patrician, Senator Francesco Panciatichi, in 1682, while Domenico Pandolfini was replaced as Segretario di Guerra by Count Ferdinando De Bardi in 1655. In 1692 there were six older patricians among the secretaries of state, and in 1736 there were four. There was a similar trend toward increased employment of nobles in other high offices. In the Pratica Segreta in 1695, five of the eight councillors were older patricians, as were seven of the eight in 1736. The Auditori Fiscale were generally non-nobles, but the Depositario Generate and the Soprassindaco of the Nove continued to be chosen from the elite. AU of the Auditori of the Riformagioni were older patricians in the seventeenth century after the appointment of Francesco Vettori in 1637, as were all of the secretaries of the Tratte: Geri Spini in 1607, 149

PART III

Cristofano Spini in 1617, Pierfrancesco De Ricci in 1624, Piero GiroIami in 1631, Senator Alamanno Arrighi in 1677, Senator Vincenzo Da Filicaia in 1700, Senator Giuseppe Ginori in 1707, and Senator Carlo Ginori in 1734. At an intermediary level, the number of offices occupied by nobles grew partly through a striking increase in pluralism, which will be con­ sidered further below. Pluralism was more likely to involve nobles than non-nobles, except with lawyers, who were frequently pressed into service in more than one place. Thus Giuseppe Orceoli, a non-noble who had first appeared in Florence as one of the Auditori of the Ruota in 1672, held three offices in 1695: he was one of the auditori of the Consulta, giudice of the Mercanzia, and assessore of the Decima. The chang­ ing economic prospects of Florence in the seventeenth century un­ doubtedly affected the change in the pattern of officeholding. Sons of patrician houses who had earlier been employed in commerce sought other opportunities as the prospects of success in business narrowed, and it seemed natural that they should be employed by the duke. Among the petitioners for an office in the Monte di Pieta in 1604 was Falco di Carlo Serragli: "He was once in the bank of Alessandro Scarlattini."19 Among the candidates for the position of Vicario of Monte S. Savino, which was given a mano, was Ottavio di Gianozzo Attavanti: "(Madama [Christine of Lorraine] has commanded that he be remem­ bered), he was employed in trade."20 For an office in the Nove in 1650 was Francesco di Giovanni Alessandri: "He has been in trade abroad, at Messina and Naples, although he has had little success"; and for an of­ fice in the Monte Comune, there was Luigi di Niccolo Capponi, "a poor gentleman, and his father was once rich."21 The bureaucracy of­ fered honorable employment, not only for second or third sons who could not be supported from family resources, but also for elder mar­ ried sons with patrimonies and expectations of inheritances. Still, the underlying social division among different sectors of the bureaucracy continued. Few patricians were employed in the law courts, while they predominated in offices of the finances. In 1695 and 1736, 83 and 87 percent of the upper-level offices and more than one" ASF, Tratte, P 629, "Note et informazioni," 220. 20 21

Ibid., 305!". ASF, Tratte, F 661, "Note et informazioni," 95; F 662, 15.

THE R E L O C A T I O N OF P A T R I C I A N S

quarter of the intermediary-level offices of the finances were occupied by older patricians. Many of them also occupied places in magistracies of the general administration, in the Abbondanza, Grascia, Pupilli, and Nove. The proportion of offices at an intermediary level held by patri­ cians in these magistracies also grew. Considering the two groups of older patricians together, one won­ ders how broadly officeholding was diffused among houses of the elite and whether, in time, the number of families with some members em­ ployed increased or diminished. This can be assessed for the four years being considered, although the results are affected by the reduction in number of older patrician houses as families became extinct. Of the 199 casate of patricians from the group frequently priors that survived in 1551, there were 193 in 1604, 158 in 1695, and 140 in 1736, and 47 old casate that had been priors less frequently or had not held office under the Republic were inscribed in the Libri di Oro. There was an increas­ ing tendency for these families to be employed in the bureaucracy. Considering the two groups together, some members of thirty-nine houses, 16 percent, were employed in the permanent offices in 15 51, 24 percent in 1604, 35 percent in 1695, and 42 percent in 1736. Rather than being defeated by the new offices of the ducal bureaucracy, the patri­ cians adapted themselves admirably to officialdom, so that the longrange effect of family and group solidarity was to provide them with a new area of employment and activity. But particular attention should be given to houses entering the elite that were later registered as new patricians or nobles, since these show the extent to which the bureaucracy provided a means of social ascent and development of a type of noblesse de robe. It is more difficult to ac­ count for the new patricians and nobles because of the relatively short life of many houses of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Court. Among the secretaries of Ferdinando I, the Vinta reached the Senate but held no offices after the death of Belissario Vinta in 1613. The Vinta returned to their native Volterra, where they died out in 1675.22 The Concini enjoyed honors from the dukes for three generations before 2} they also became extinct in 1636. The Usimbardi remained in office " ASF, Carte Sebrigondi, 5483. 11 Litta, Famiglie celebri, π, fasc. 14. 151

PART III 24

for only two generations. Among the secretaries of Ferdinando I only the Corboli survived to be registered in the Libri di Oro among new patricians in 1760.25 One group that rose in status through the bureaucracy consisted of jurists who first appeared in Florence as Auditori of the Ruota, or in other offices reserved for lawyers, and then stayed on. There was a small independent judicial elite. Jacopo Conti, an Auditore of the Ruota of Siena and of Florence, listed the names of many of its members in his Relationum Curiae Senensis et Florentinae, which was published in 1723. Families of jurists in office in 1695 who were later registered as nobles included the Luci and Maggio, and in 1736, the Neri-Badia. The Luci family were notables of the provincial town of Colle, where they qualified as nobles through their habilitation for office in the communal government. Emilio Luci, whose father was a lawyer at Colle, entered the bureaucracy as chancellor of the Dogana in 1654. He was made Assessore of the Otto di Guardia, chancellor of the Mercanzia, and an Auditore of the Ruota before becoming the Auditore Fiscale in 1671. In 1695 o n e son > Alessandro Luci, was also an Auditore of the Ruota, while another, Filippo, was the Auditore Fiscale. The Luci were admitted to the Order of St. Stephen in 1708 and recognized as patrician in 1761. Similarly, the Maggio were notables of the town of Urbino in Umbria. Piermaria Maggio became Auditore of the Magistrato Supremo in 1674. In 1695 he was an Auditore of the Consulta, an Auditore of the Ruota, and the Auditore of the Bande. His family continued to hold judicial offices; they proved their nobility for the Order of St. Stephen, and were registered in the Libri di Oro in 1751. The Neri-Badia came from Castel Fiorentino near Volterra, and Giovanni Neri was an Auditore of the Consulta in 1736. But the Neri were not yet nobles; they had to wait until Pompeo Neri, the secretary of the Hapsburg Regency and defender of the privileges of old Florentine patricians in the 1740s, was admitted to the Libri di Oro as a noble of Florence and Volterra by the Hapsburgs in 1762. There was thus a small judicial elite in seventeenth-century Florence that rose in status through the bureaucracy. However, old patrician standing was a far more important determinant of social standing than 24 25

ASF, Carte Sebrigondi, 1803. ASF, Deputazione Nobilta, F 13, ins. 6. 152

THE RELOCATION OF PATRICIANS

was social ascent through office in the bureaucracy. Of the ninety-one houses of new patricians and nobles registered in the Libri di Oro be­ fore 1760, only 23 percent had held office in 1695 or 1736, as compared with 48 percent in the corresponding two groups of older patricians. Ennobled dynasties of jurists were a minority even among the new no­ bles. To the extent that the emergence of officialdom in Tuscany in­ volved the creation of a noblesse de robe, the ennobled officeholders were patricians, and it is significant that the sector of the bureaucracy that most attracted them were the financial offices, which were an extension of their accustomed place in the Florentine business community, rather than the law courts. We shall see, in Part V, that the commercial ori­ entation of Florentine officialdom was quite important for the policy of the dukes in the adverse economic situation of seventeenth-century Tuscany. Bureaucratic office also had a greater significance for the elite than simply providing employment in a period of economic downturn. But before considering further the relationship between patrician inter­ ests and ducal policy, it is necessary to turn briefly to some other aspects of the habits of patrician officeholders, which further define the nature of the bureaucracy's seventeenth-century development.

PART IV

THE PATRIMONIALISM OF PATRICIAN FUNCTIONARIES

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

The influx of patricians into the permanent offices clearly affected the quality of administration, which did not develop in a strictly linear way in early modern states, so that the aims of one period were always re­ alized directly in the mode of operation of the immediately succeeding one. Indeed, in some ways the ducal administration of the sixteenth century was more modern than it was in the seventeenth century, when there was growth of abuses of types that Tuscany shared with other states during this period. Historians generally identify a transitional phase in the development of bureaucracies, which Weber described with the term "patrimonialism" to differentiate the practices of earlier periods from the more rational ones that developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By patrimonialism he meant a form of polit­ ical authority, and also an administrative system, in which high offi­ cials of state were officials of the household of the ruler. Such officials had broad personal latitude in their conduct of office and haphazard maintenance: payment in kind, participation in taxes or fees, or re­ wards of estates or fiefs.1 In the England of the 1630s officials of Charles I could still claim the perquisite of maintenance in the household of the king. They were personal servants of the king rather than, as yet, sub­ jects of the more impersonal rules of the state.2 A characteristic prob­ lem of patrimonialism was the tendency for officials to escape close control and to consider their offices as private property. In France this led to inheritance and sale of offices, which created problems through the eighteenth century. In Tuscany there was no formal sale of offices, but the ducal administration nonetheless had strongly patrimonial characteristics and developed a pattern of abuses. Rulers elsewhere sought to remedy the ills of patrimonialism by designating a more se­ lect corps of officials, such as the service nobles of the Russian tsars from the time of Peter the Great, or by creating commissaires as intend' Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 346-54. 2

Aylmer, The King's Servants, 160-82; for his discussion of Weber, see pp. 453-64.

PART IV

ants to circumvent the independence of officials already established, as in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century France.3 To these patrimonial characteristics of early bureaucracies Weber contrasted the modern state with its foundation in rational-legal authority, more specialized fields of administrative activity, a more definite hierarchy of command, and a clear separation between the private enterprise of officials and their public duties, achieved through specialized training and strict observance of rules of procedure. 4 In Tuscany the Republic had already achieved a degree of rationality in administration, through an exercise of rules governing conduct in office that Weber might have ascribed to a later period. Weber paid more attention to monarchies than to city-republics and made insufficient distinction between the institutions of the medieval city and of the modern state.5 In Tuscany these two forms were intermixed, but in the seventeenth century, as the habits of the city-state were transformed into those of patrimonial monarchy, the habits of the ducal administration became more similar to those of monarchies elsewhere in Europe. Training: Lawyers and Non-Lawyers The changing importance of lawyers and notaries is indicative of the shift in nature of the system. Lawyers, as men with training in special procedures of administration, might be taken to be to some degree agents of rationality, and it has often seemed that their employment in ever larger numbers was an important aspect of the development of the modern state.6 Weber himself gave large importance to the study of law in the transition from patrimonial to rational-legal procedure. 7 Considering the development of legal studies in the Renaissance and the importance assumed by lawyers and jurists in the sixteenth century, one would think their number and importance would have continued to 3

Note the discussion of Fischer and Lundgreen, "Recruitment and Training," 456561; Armstrong, "Old Regime Governors," 2-29; Pinter and Rowney, Russian Officialdom. 4 Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber, 196-244; Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, 328-41. 5 See Weber, The City, 183-86. 6 Bouwsma, "Lawyers and Early Modern Culture," 303-27; Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, passim. 7 Note the discussion in Bendix, Max Weber, 385-416. I5S

TRAINING AND A P P O I N T M E N T

grow in the seventeenth century. This development might have continued the trend toward greater regularity of procedure, have facilitated the mobility of new men into offices, and have required a revolution in education of the patricians as they prepared themselves for a new type of administrative career. The employment of lawyers did not take on a strictly linear development, but instead an increase of their number in the sixteenth century was followed by stasis in the seventeenth century. Patricians generally did not occupy offices requiring legal training, and as they invaded the permanent offices the proportion of places held by lawyers and notaries did not increase. The expanding bureaucracy adapted itself to the habits of the elite, rather than the elite to the bureaucracy, so that from the point of view of legal training the patricians entered office largely on their own terms. Table 9.1 shows the number of permanent offices at an upper and intermediary level occupied by lawyers and notaries between 1551 and 1736. It has been constructed from reference to the titles messer, avvocato, and ser in the lists of officeholders, from biographical and genealogical sources, and from descriptions of offices from the archive of the Tratte. The Republic had employed a sizeable legal staff, and in the sixteenth century this staff grew. In 1551, under Cosimo I, a third of the permanent offices were held by lawyers or notai. In 1604, through the introduction of auditori, assessori, and other men, the number of offices held by lawyers and notaries increased by nearly half, from 71 to 101, a legal revolution of sorts. But through the introduction of offices that did not require lawyers, the proportion of offices held by men with legal training actually decreased slightly between 1551 and 1604, from 34 to 31 percent. Then in the seventeenth century, the number of offices held by lawyers and notai remained constant, while the number of offices held by non-lawyers continued to grow, so that in 1695 and 1736 the proportion of offices held by men with legal training had fallen to 26 percent. The decrease in employment of lawyers is particularly noticeable in the upper councils of state, the Segreteria di Stato, Magistrate Supremo, Pratica Segreta, Riformagioni, and Tratte, where nearly three-quarters of the places were held by men with legal training under Cosimo I in the 1550s, but only a third under Gian Gastone in the 1730s. With regard to the social standing of lawyers, one notes that the number of offices held by older patricians who were lawyers grew slightly between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, but that these 159

NPN

19

23

PI

T

I

3

15

18

PU

PI

T

7

6

1

1

5

(64)

25

(58)

15

(57)

4

(100)

6

(69)

24

(79)

19

(45)

39

26

7

6

35

24

II

3

3

3

I

2

1

I

NPN

34

22

6

6

22

12

10

0

1

1

1

1

u

OP

1604

OFF

u

T

1531

PM

Law Courts

4

PU

PM

Upper Councils

OP

O

TABLE 9.I

(62)

38

(57)

26

(67)

6

(100)

6

27 (66)

(58)

14

(76)

13

T

61

46

9

6

41

24

17

OFF

5

3

2

OP

6

I

2

3

5

2

3

NPN

35

20

4

11

7

5

2

0

2

2

u

1695

P E R M A N E N T OFFICES O C C U P I E D BY L A W Y E R S AND N O T A R I E S ,

7

43

(61)

(49)

21

(55)

6

16 (100)

(35)

17

(33)

10

(39)

T

70

43

II

16

48

30

18

OFF

1551-1736

2

1

1

3

3

OP

5

1

2

2

3

1

I

NPN

34

24

3

7

II

10

1

0

1

1

u

1736

5

(63)

42

(58)

26

(58)

7

9

(100)

(33)

17

(35)

12

(28)

T

66

45

12

9

52

34

18

OFF

2

T

3

10

I

49

3

3

PI

T

14 (34)

II

3

2

71 (33)

84

13

218

2

6i

11

173

55 (32)

6

9

17

5

2

34

10 (29)

II

33

2

I

101 (29)

75 (26)

20 (43)

6 (40)

14 (26)

351

290

46

15

53

13

8

3

18

8

6

4

2

2

2

1

1

5

4

I

2

6

3

I

2

75

57

7

II

II

II

22

21

1

2

437

331

53

53

72

51

9

12

247

207

15

25

20

9

7

4

5

3

2

10

5

1

4

18

12

4

2

4

4

6

5

I

81

70

4

7

10

10

26

26

1

1

120 (25)

91 (24)

16 (29)

13 (30)

19 (21)

17 (25)

2 (25)

42 (15)

36 (15)

(II)

2

4 (17)

483

383

56

44

89

69

8

12

276

235

18

23

OP = O l d patricians, NPN = N e w patricians and nobles; O — N o n - n o b l e s ; U = Unidentified officeholder, but office required a l a w y e r o r n o t a r y ; T = T o t a l l a w y e r s

108 (25)

73 (22)

16 (30)

19 (36)

15 (21)

14 (27)

(")

1

33 (13)

28 (14)

2 (13)

3 (12)

and notaries, OFF = T o t a l offices, PM = Permanent magistracies; PU = Permanent upper-level offices; PI = Permanent intermediary-level offices.

KEY

NOTE- Percentages (in parentheses) are total offices held b y l a w y e r s and notaries o f total offices in each c a t e g o r y

57

8

6 (55)

7 (21)

6

PU

PM

Total

I

T

7 (29)

6 41

i

pi

24

I

196

22 (")

179

21 (12)

7 9

19

18

13

4

2

i

i

1 (7)

5

5

2

2

1

5

i n

99

12

PU

15 (14)

H (H)

(8)

4

PM

6

3

9

1

General Administration

2

PI

PU

PM

Finances

PART IV

were always a distinct minority. In 1695 and 1736 the new patricians and nobles contributed an almost equal number. The overwhelming majority of lawyers and notaries continued to be recruited outside of the elite. Legal training thus deserves attention, although it is clear that this was by no means the only training patrician officeholders received. By considering the mode of training and appointment, one can divide the Florentine legal profession into three groups: (1) foreign non-Floren­ tine lawyers who were required for the Ruota, the Consulta and the Mercanzia; (2) native lawyers from the city or from the Florentine Do­ minion who qualified for offices requiring lawyers that were not re­ served for foreigners; and (3) notaries, who might or might not be Florentines, and, as the practices of the regime developed, became a group of decreasing importance. The foreign justices were men with training and experience outside of Florentine territory and tended to be a group apart. Native lawyers and notai were required to fulfill the qual­ ifications of the lawyers' and notaries' guild, the Arte dei Giudici e No­ tai, and were subject to its jurisdiction. Foreignjustices were required for the Ruota and the Mercanzia, and other Auditori of importance were often chosen from this group. Itin­ erant justices were quite common in Italy, and those employed by the Medici came from all over the peninsula and abroad. According to a reform of its statutes in 1585, the justice of the Mercanzia had to be at least thirty-five years of age, a doctor of law at least three years before his election, and from outside of the Florentine Dominion. 8 The prac­ tice for the Ruota and Consulta was similar. Places were sometimes oc­ cupied by lawyers from Siena, but Florentines were excluded as justices in the courts. Indeed, patricians may not have sought legal training as a first step of administrative careers because they were excluded from the most important positions, and the habit of employing non-Florentines provided a regular means of entry of non-nobles into the bureaucracy. The Auditori of the Ruota were restricted in their tenure of office to terms of three years in the sixteenth century, although in the early eighteenth century they often remained longer. The twelve justices in the two terms before 1604 were from Bergamo, Perugia, Correggio, Bologna, Pontremoli, Ravenna, Fano, Rome, Siena, and Portugal, and 8

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xi, 132-346.

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

three of these were later appointed as Auditori in other magistracies. Carlo Lunardi, from Ravenna, became the Auditore of the Bande in 1605. Domenico Gualandi, from Bologna, later became the Giudice of the Mercanzia, an Auditore of the Consulta, the Assessore of the Monte di Pieta, and in 1616 the Auditore Fiscale. Antonio Curini, from Pontremoli, who followed Gualandi as Giudice of the Mercanzia in 1634, had earlier been an Auditore of the Consulta and was later made Auditore Fiscale. Through the seventeenth century there was a demand for such trained men, and in the rash of pluralism that affected the bureaucracy, lawyers were often the men who had more than one place. In 1695 the most extensive pluralist among the Auditori was Senator Cavaliere Dottore Andrea Poltri, whose family was finally registered as patrician in the Libri di Oro in 1791. He held six offices simultaneously, being Auditore of the Consulta, Auditore della Giurisdizione, Soprintendente and Consultore of the Nove, a deputy of the Deputazione Sopra i Monasteri, and a Protettore of the Monte di Pieta. Earlier he had been Provveditore of the Gabella dei Contratti and Giudice of the Magona, and later he was made Auditore Generale of Siena. Lawyers were edu­ cated at Bologna, Padova, Rome, or Turin, and natives of the Duchy at the Universities of Pisa and Siena. Eighteenth-century critics com­ plained about the quality of education in the schools, since masters were available only sporadically in some subjects, attendance was er­ ratic, and lessons were traditional and formalized. Ways were found to shorten the number of years of required attendance, and many students did not receive degrees.9 At Bologna, education in law was based on the Justinian Digest and Institutes, which had been revived through the philological and historical methods of Renaissance legists. It included canon law, feudal law, criminal procedure, and notarial practice.10 Everywhere, legal education was based on the study of Roman law, a habit that contributed in Tuscany both to the nature of ducal legislation and to the way in which common law and the underlying legal tradition of the Republic were interpreted. 9 On the University of Turin, see Ricuperati, "L'Universita di Torino nel Settecento," 575-97; and Balam, "Studi giuridici e professiom," 185-278. On Padua, see Brugi, Storia della gturisprudenza. Further on the culture of sixteenth-century Florentine jurists, see Fasano Guarini, "I giuristi e Io stato nella Toscana Medicea," 229-47. •° Simeoni, Storia dell' Universita di Bologna, n, 29-37, 103-38.

I63

PART IV

Legal erudition in Tuscan universities took on new developments in the sixteenth century, but little further development occurred in the seventeenth century. One remembers that Lelio Torelli, the Auditore della Camera of Cosimo I, had published an important edition of the Justinian Pandects in 1553. Florentine citizens and inhabitants of the Dominion were obliged to attend the University of Pisa or the Studio Fiorentino, while inhabitants of Siena attended the University of Siena. The University of Pisa was the most important, and it expanded with the new Collegio Riccium in 1568, the Collegio Putaneo in 160$, and the Collegio Ferdinando in 1643. In the school of law, besides the Ordinarii inJus Civile and the Institutes, new regular chairs were founded in criminal law in 1544, in pandects in 1591, and in feudal law in 1627. From the registers of fees paid by students receiving doctorates, one can make a rough estimate of the trend in the number of students. In the years 1610-19, there was an average of about seventy degrees yearly, and many of the recipients were non-Tuscans. The number of degrees then decreased in the mid-seventeenth century, and did not be­ gin to recover again until the beginning of the eighteenth century." Students matriculated at about age seventeen, continued for five years, and were required to prepare the Institutes and Corpus Civile before being declared doctors of law. Legal education was thus unrelated to the actual administrative practice of the Duchy, which operated on re­ cent precedent rather than on the historical experience of antiquity. It was not until the founding of a chair in public law in 1726 that the uni­ versity began to provide training in Tuscan as well as Roman practice.12 Appointments of foreign justices for the Florentine courts passed through the ducal secretaries and the Consulta, while appointment of native lawyers for other offices passed through the channels of the Tratte. The candidates were under supervision of the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, which traditionally controlled the Florentine legal profession. The statutes of the guild were reissued in 1567 and remained in effect " The decrease in the number of law degrees began in the 1630s and by the 1650s and 1660s the number was about half that of the period 1610-19; see ASP, Dottorati,

D 11,

4-7· 12

On the development of legal studies at Pisa, see Abbondanza, "Tentativi Medicei di

chiamare l'Alciato," 362-403; Fabroni, Historia Academiae Pisanae·, Carranza, "L'universita di Pisa," 469-537.

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

until its suppression in 1771.13 Matriculation into the guild was open to men from any part of the Florentine Dominion. Matriculation as a law­ yer required exhibition of a doctorate in law, and notaries, whatever their training, were required to pass an examination in notarial practice before the examinatori of the guild. Thus, both the practice of employing foreign justices and the pro­ cedures of the Arte dei Giudici e Notai opened the way for non-Florentine lawyers and notaries in the city, and although it is difficult to tell how many provincials obtained matriculation into the guild, there was clearly a continual immigration of aspiring lawyers and notaries into Florence from provincial towns. Their presence undoubtedly helps to explain why so many men in the permanent offices, and particularly so many lawyers and notaries, were non-patricians. Provincial lawyers might well have acquired a still greater prominence had it not been for a reaction against them, akin to the fifteenth-century exclusion of cittadini notai from the borse for the magistracies that was no longer prac­ ticed after 1563, and a movement of men from the elite into offices re­ quiring lawyers of modest but persistent effect. Patricians had a place among the consuls who governed the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, and in 1612 under Cosimo II their place within the guild was further defined by the formation of a new body called the Collegio degli Avvocati. Only lawyers who were Florentine citizens "from noble families, in the determination of the Collegio" could be admitted to this body. Two of the eight consuls of the Arte dei Giudici e Notai and ten of the thirty places in the three lesser councils of the guild were reserved for them. The Collegio also had a consultative voice in the appointment of men for certain judicial offices conferred a mano through the Tratte, and the Avvocati dei Poveri, an office at­ tached to the Conservatori di Leggi, were always supposed to be av­ vocati nobili.14

The formation of the Collegio degli Avvocati not only distinguished a special place for lawyers from the Florentine elite, but it also marked a step in the decline of notaries under the Duchy, who were excluded from membership. In the balance between the profession of lawyers and the profession of notaries, the sixteenth-century expansion of legal ,J

ASF, Arte dei Giudici e Notai, P 1.

14

Cantim, Legislazione Toscana, xiv, 364-74, 377-79.

PART IV

training gave lawyers a higher status, and they tended to replace notai among the successful candidates for offices. The title ser appears much less frequently among officeholders in 1695 and i736thanit had in 1551 and 1604. A Florentine treatise of the 1660s vainly attempted to defend the "nobility" of the notarial profession, and bitterly complained of the secondary place given to notai in the Arte dei Giudici e Notai.IS Al­ though notaries continued to be required for provincial offices, in Flor­ ence they were increasingly relegated to private practice. In 1548 and 1627 the dukes reissued the Republican regulation of 1469 fixing the le­ gal age at which notaries could matriculate, and with provisions of 1570 and 1586 they regulated the procedure of selecting notaries to ac­ company citizen justices to the provincial towns.16 This legislation in­ troduced a triennial scrutiny of lawyers and notaries applying for places in the staff of the provincial judgeships that was intended to check the patronage over appointments exercised privately by the citizens se­ lected as Vicari and Podesta. It is difficult to assess the balance between patricians and non-patri­ cians among lawyers matriculated in the Arte dei Giudici e Notai or, from the lists of Dottoriati, to tell how many studied law at Pisa, since patricians did not always complete their degrees. While patrician law­ yers remained a minority there was a persistent tendency to acquire some training in law. Among the Ordinari in civil law at Pisa, who re­ mained as masters after the completion of their studies, one notes the names of a Malegonelle and a Capponi in the 1550s, another Capponi in the 1560s, an Ugolini in the 1580s, a Medici after 1600, a Della Stufa in the 1630s, and an Antinori in the 1650s.17 Four of the thirty-two older patrician senators in 1551 were Avvocati, as were seven of the thirty-seven in 1604, six of the forty-five in 1695, and five of the fortyfour in 1736. Only three older patricians in the permanent offices in 1551 can be identified as lawyers, while there were thirteen in 1604, thirteen in 1695, and twenty in 1736. In the Collegio degli Avvocati, the avvocati nobili were not very numerous. Sixty men were admitted between 1612 and 1736, and although they were not all patricians from the older group, the careers of some of them can be traced step by 15

ASF, Consulta, f f 96-100, Matteo Neroni, "Nobilta del Tabelhonato madre della

fede publica difesa da altrui calumme" (1667). 16

Cantim, Legislazione Toscana y xvi, 10-27.

17

Fabroni, Historiae Academiae Pisanae, 11, 463-71.

TRAINING AND A P P O I N T M E N T 18

step. Ferrante di Niccolo Capponi (1611-98), a doctor of law at Pisa employed in the Sacra Rota of Rome, was admitted to the Collegio at the age of forty-three in 1655. He became a senator in 1657, then Auditore della Giurisdizione in 1661, and held seven other offices of importance. Roberto Viviani (1634-1708), similarly educated at Pisa, became the Assessore of the Monte del Sale in 1664 when he was twenty-nine. He was admitted to the Collegio degli Avvocati a year later, became a senator in 1688, and then the Provveditore of the Gabella dei Contratti, a Protettore of the Monte del Sale, and a Protettore of the Monte Redimibile. A lawyer among the senators in 1695 w a s Vincenzo Da Filicaia (1642-1707), a poet, who also served as Commissario of Volterra and of Pisa and then as secretary of the Tratte. Other lawyers among senators in 1695 and 1736 were Simone Altoviti, Lorenzo Pucci, Pier Francesco De Ricci, and Giulio Rucellai, all of whom held offices in the permanent staff. But the majority of patricians in the permanent offices were not lawyers, and there was a long murmur of protest through the seventeenth century from the Arte dei Giudici e Notai against employment of men who lacked legal training. One wonders what other types of education prepared the sons of patrician families for administrative careers. The family was important in the education and advancement of upper-class Florentines, both in their early years and as they emerged into society. Formal schooling ended at an early age, but grammar schools were attached to Florentine churches, and there were colleges of Jesuits and Oratorians, as well as other collegi dei nobili. Academies filled an educational function.I9 Admission to the horse for the magistracies of the Republic had been achieved through family standing rather than formal education, and judging from the descriptions of types of men sought for employment in 1695, most permanent offices required little more than elementary schooling, perhaps some accounting, personal bearing, and a "knowledge of affairs." The customary education of Florentine citizens not destined for the law or the Church was as giovani in banks or merchant companies, an apprenticeship in commerce acquired with kin or family associates. This may have been what led so 18

For the names of those admitted to the Collegio de Nobili, see ASF, Arte Giudici e Notai, F 88, "Decreti per l'ammissione al avvocatura del Collegio de' Nobili, 1612I752-" " On the collegi dei nobili, see Brizzi, La jormazione della classe dingente. 167

PART IV

many patricians into offices of the finances. Under the Republic, men had customarily entered office in the magistracies at a quite mature age, having acquired their "knowledge of affairs" in business or the world at large. In the seventeenth century a type of apprenticeship in the bu­ reaucracy also became more common. But for both commerce and du­ cal service, the training of young nobles was left largely to family, kin, and social peers. The early education and progress of two patricians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ruberto di Ruberto Pepi (1571-1633) and Alessandro di Vieri De Cerchi (1625-1708), and of one in the eight­ eenth century, Giuseppe Pelli-Bencivenni (1729-1808), can perhaps be considered typical. The first had experience in the lesser permanent of­ fices and in the magistracies, and the second at the Court, among the secretaries of state and in the Senate. The third had a long career in the bureaucracy that began in the 1750s and continued through the Hapsburg reforms. Ruberto Pepi, descended from an old house that was first in the priorate in 1301 but of relatively modest circumstances in the sixteenth century and whose father died the year of his birth, began his adult life as a commercial agent for Florentine merchants in the Levant trade. Then, in service of the duke, he traveled to Poland to buy grain for the Abbondanza at the moment of the grain crisis of 1601 and became a provisioner for the fleet of St. Stephen. At the end of his life he entered the round of offices in the magistracies and provincial judgeships. His early education was probably typical of young Florentines who were intended to enter trade. As he later wrote in his Ricordi, I began as a youth to go to school with different masters, and the last was M/ Antonio Orsi, rector of the Church of San Donato, from whom I learned Latin . . . and from other masters writing and the abbacus, and in all of this I had good practice. It was the desire of my mother in the same year, 1588 [when he was 16], and of other of my kinsmen, that I be put into a bank, with the Ricasoli, under Cammillo Magalotti, Orazio Ricasoli, and others, and I remained there steadily until the year 1591 [when he was 19], the year of the coming of Serenissima Madama [the marriage of Ferdinando I and Christine of Lorraine] when I served as a page. A little later, by the same Ricasoli, I was sent to Al­ exandria in Egypt.20 20

Archivio Pepi, Libro di Ricordi di Ruberto di Ruberto Pepi.

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

Ruberto was thus apprenticed to a merchant, but after only a few years of service with the Ricasoli he began to seek the service of the duke. In 1599 he obtained appointment as a Rationiere, or provisioner, of the galleys of St. Stephen. After several voyages with the galleys of Pisa, he obtained the place of Guardiano of the Dogana in Florence in 1607, the year before his marriage. In 1610 he was again in the service of the duke, this time as agent to ransom two Tuscan ships held in Sic­ ily at Trapani. Then he returned to Florence, kept his office in the Dogana, busied himself with the management of two small farms in the nearby Contado, and held office in the magistracies. In 1617, when he was forty-five, he was "honored with the office of the Nove" in recol­ lection of his earlier service to the duke. In 1619 he was among the Ufficiali of the Monte Comune, in 1620 the Magistrato dei Pupilli, and in 1621 vicar of S. Miniato and on commission for the Abbondanza. The round of the magistracies was made for such relatively mature men, and Ruberto Pepi continued to be employed regularly in this manner, his last place being among the Consoli di Mare of Pisa in the year of his death in 1633, when he was sixty-two. 21 Ruberto Pepi's was a moderately successful career in which access to the magistracies was still of primary importance. His place in the Dogana gave him a steady employment, but in his mind this seemed a sec­ ondary matter. Alessandro di Vieri De Cerchi, from an old house of popolani that was once magnati, rose to greater heights. The Cerchi ranked above the Pepi in standing and means. They had entered the priorate in 1285, and became established in the Senate and Order of St. Stephen in the generation of Alessandro's father, Vieri di Alessandro De Cerchi (1588-1647). Alessandro later recalled: "In 1633 [when he was eight] . . . Vieri my father brought into the house the excellent 21 He was a Consul of the Arte della Lana in 1624, "uffizio di 4 mesi di poca briga e di non molto benefizio," then one of the Ufficiali oftheDecima. In 1625 he was made Commissario di Viveri of a contingent of Tuscan troops sent to Lombardy. In 1626 he was m the Capitani di Parte, in 1627 again in the Nove and in the Arte della Lana. In 1628, after a pilgrimage to Loreto, he was again among the Ufficiali of the Decima, "e posso dire che a mio credere si adoperassi per me . . . favore piu che ordinario . . . che in quattro anni due volte delli suddetti Ufficiali tocca a molti pochi. , . sia il S/re benegratiato, a la sua Santa Madre di Loreto." In 1629 he was in the Monte di Pieta and the Mercanzia, in 1630 in the Opera of Santa Maria del Fiore and again in the Mercanzia, in 1631 again in the Nove, and in 1632 in the Onesta.

PART IV

priest M/ Jacopo Buonfanti of Bibbiena, and gave me to him to be taught along with Vincenzo my brother and our older sisters." In 1636, when he had learned Latin, he was sent to study "in the Accademia dei Nobili, which the regular fathers of the Madre di Dio [Sta. Maria dei Ricci] . . . had set aside from their regular school five or six years be­ fore."22 Ofhis twenty-eight schoolmates, he noted that four were later senators, five Abbate or canons, and six Knights of St. Stephen or of Malta. Here Alessandro remained until 1640, when at age fifteen he was sent to study for a year at the Accademia degli Ardenti in Bologna. Then he was placed for some months in the bank of the Albizzi and Mazzinghi in Florence before being preemptively elevated in 1642, when he was seventeen, through the influence of the first secretary of state, Giovanbattista Gondi, to a supernumerary place as assistant in the Segreteria di Stato. The same year he entered the first grade of the Knights of St. Stephen. He then remained in the service of the Court, receiving a permanent place in the Segreteria di Stato from Ferdinando II in 1650, when he was twenty-five, which he occupied until his death, and a place in the Senate, in 1666, from which he entered the usual round of offices in the magistracies and permanent offices. Besides his place in the Segreteria di Stato, he was made Provveditore of the Monte Commune in 1679. In the early eighteenth century the education of Giuseppe PelliBencivenni, descended from a family of relatively small importance in the fifteenth century and of small to moderate wealth, was essentially similar. Giuseppe Pelli was orphaned of his mother in 1736, when he was seven, and of his father in 1738, when he was nine. He was brought up under the guardianship of another noble family, the Coppoli. Three of his four sisters became nuns, and he quarreled with an older brother with whom he shared an inheritance. He attended the University of Pisa to study law but took no degree, and returned to Florence in 1752, when he was twenty-three, to seek some preferment. He began in the studio legale of one of the Auditori of the Ruota. Four years later he was hoping to become the librarian of the ducal library, a place that went to another. He then considered a post as tutor to the sons of another pa­ trician family, the Feroni, or in the household of Cardinal Neri Corsini in Rome, and thought of acquiring subentry into a minor office of the 22

ASF, Carte Cerchi, F 167, "Stona di Famiglia."

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

bureaucracy as Assessore of the Conservatoio di S. Bonifazio, a posi­ tion held by the decrepit Senator Giovan Francesco Quaratesi (an office "of little income [but which] could put me in the position of being known"). Instead, to his good fortune, he obtained a place as assistant in the Segreteria di Stato in 1758, when he was twenty-nine, a place from which his later succession of offices developed.23 The education of other patricians was probably similar to that of one or another of these men. The regulations for the magistracies had set a minimum age which varied from twenty-five to forty years for differ­ ent rotating offices, and in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the permanent offices were rarely occupied formally by younger men. Between the early end of formal education and the advanced age of marriage—thirty-three to thirty-six years in the seventeenth century— wellborn Florentines passed a period of years as giovani di banco, as as­ sistants in commercial companies, or, increasingly, as supernumerary assistants without formal appointment in the bureaucracy. Opportu­ nities for first employment were shifting from business to officeholding, once successive careers in which early experience in business had been followed by a round of offices in the magistracies later in life. In the seventeenth century, early apprenticeship in the bureaucracy rather than experience in trade became increasingly common. Thus in 1603, among the supplicants for the office of Guardiano of the Mercanzia was Pierfilippo di Benedetto Uguccioni, "Ajuto of the Provveditore of the Decima, where he has served for several years with forbearance."24 For the office of Scrivano of the Soprassindaco of the Nove was Niccolo di Giovanfrancesco Altoviti, "Scrivano of the Monte di Pieta, and previously assistant to the Ragioniere of the Farine, a well-intentioned youth with good knowledge of writing. He is un­ married."25 In 1695, among the supplicants for an office in the Decima was Anton Maria di Cosimo Pitti, "most humble servant and subject of Your Highness [who] humbly petitions the grace to be elected a su­ pernumerary in the office of the Decima . . . to serve in the office of the Provveditore, or some other, so that he can prepare himself for the service."26 For an Ajuto of the Ragionieri of the bureau of the Farine, 23

BNF, NA 1050, Giuseppe Pelh-Bencivenm; Efemeridi, 1.

34

ASF, Tratte,

as

Ibid., 50.

36

ASF, Tratte, F 686, "Note et informazioni," 8.

F

629, "Note et informazioni," 1.

PART IV

Orazio di Giovanfrancesco Carnesecchi, "a youth who has done noth­ ing. Son of the Provveditore who petitions Your Highness and prom­ ises that he will succeed in satisfying the service. He will keep an eye on him, and the place is not very important, or very difficult."27 These were all patrician youths seeking their first office or advancing petitions through the Tratte after their initial period of service to obtain more suitable offices. Formal education is seldom mentioned in the petitions, so that one might hazard to guess that formal education was not an im­ portant criterion for appointment of patricians in the permanent staff. The success of petitions and the development of patrician careers de­ pended instead on family connections and on the system of patronage. The System of Appointments One aspect of the ducal system that facilitated the entry of patricians into office was undoubtedly the fact that appointments to the perma­ nent staff, and the terms on which these offices were held, never ac­ quired the degree of legal regulation that had governed officeholding in the Republican magistracies. The old regulations for the magistracies had been most elaborate, and after the first years of the Duchy they were compiled in a lengthy summary by Michele Paci, one of the chan­ cellors of the Tratte, in 1595.28 Not only were the qualifications of cit­ izens for admission to the scrutinies set down in minute detail, and pre­ cise means determined for forming the borse of men eligible for selection at different levels, but also divieti prevented citizens from being reselected for the same offices, from holding several offices con­ currently, or from holding certain offices when other members of their casate were in office. Should their names appear in the drawings, priests, tax delinquents, natural sons, bankrupts, and criminals were prohibited from holding office. The age at which men became eligible for different offices was specified, as well as the method by which they were to prove their age. Offices reserved for notai were carefully distin­ guished, as were the sums required as surety from camarlinghi respon­ sible for the Casse of different magistracies and the means by which the conduct of magistrates was to be reviewed at the ends of their terms. 27

Ibid., 295. ASF , Tratte, F 1101, "Registro legale, ossia repertorio di massime relative alle tratte ed a tutti gli uffizi" (by Michele Paci, 1595). 28

TRAINING AND A P P O I N T M E N T

The politics of the Republic seem to have required this degree of publicity of rules, and the dukes inherited and adapted the Republican legislation, which continued to apply to rotating offices in the magistracies. But no similar body of rules was enacted for the permanent staff where procedures developed independently on a customary basis. Still, in the sixteenth century, the process of appointment seems to have proceeded with reasonable efficiency. A memorandum of the 1650s describes the way of filling offices earlier in the century when Lorenzo Niccolini (1592-1607), or Geri and Cristofano Spini (1607-17 and 1617-24) were secretaries of the Tratte: Whenever an office became vacant in any of the chanceries of the City . . . or its Dominion, applicants brought their petitions to the tribunal where the office was vacant. These were sent to the Secretary of the Tratte, who made up a hst with information about each of the petitioners that was sent to the Auditore and SegretariodiCameraofS.A.R. . . . The Auditore and Segretario returned the petition granted to the Secretary of the Tratte, who in turn sent it to the Magistrato Supremo for publication of the act. With this notification in his favor, the successful applicant went to the Monte Comune, where he paid a certain tax, and another tax for the expedition of his petition to the Chancery of the Tratte, and with the receipts from these took possession of the office he had obtained.29 Thus the secretary of the Tratte had control over appointment to most offices, a fact that matches what can be determined from the records of the archive of the Tratte. To be sure, offices of the Court, ambassadors, military officials of the Bande, Church benefices in the patronage of the duke, and certain offices in the provinces passed through the Segreteria di Stato independently. Menial places were filled by the Provveditori of the magistracies themselves. Still, there was a centralization of control. In the spring of 1604 under Lorenzo Niccolini, appointments began on January 16 with the selection of a Scrivano for the Farine, for which there were eleven petitioners, and, on the same day, of the Doganiere of the city, for which the candidates numbered sixteen. On January 26 selection was made for the Capitani of the Montagna di Pistoia and of Librafratta, and for the Podesta of Campi and Barga, provincial offices given a mano. On the 6th and 10th of February 29 ASF, Misc. Med., F 7, ins. 27, "Modo che si teneva nel conferirsi da SAR Ie cariche," memorandum of 1651.

173

PART IV

there were two petitions for the office of Provveditore of the Decima Ecclesiastica, for which the appointment was concluded on March 4. On March 2, a list of eighteen petitions was drawn up for an assistant to one of the Ragionieri of the Monte Comune, and a list of nine peti­ tioners for an assistant of the Ragioniere of the Farine. On March 13, lists of names were drawn up to fill four more Podesterie.30 In this way the business of the Tratte proceeded through the year. Yet the manner in which petitions were presented, in which lists of candidates were drawn up, and in which men were ultimately selected provides matter for speculation, for it was easier for private interests to assert themselves in appointments for permanent offices than for places in the magistracies, where selection continued to be made from the horse of eligible citizens from the scrutinies. Appointment on the basis of petitions of aspirants might seem to provide sufficient latitude of choice, and judging from the information provided about petitioners at the time of Lorenzo Niccolini, the majority of applicants were men with prior experience in office, and often in the magistracies. Thus in 1603, for the Camarlingo of the Monte di Pieta, Marcantonio De Nobili was chosen from among eleven candidates, "a person of intelli­ gence and substance who has been drawn for several offices, and most recently was at Montepulciano, where he had good success. He is mar­ ried and has several children."31 In the same year, for one of the Ufficiali of the Monte Comune, given a mano, the candidate chosen from among fifteen others was Piero di Marco Bartolini-Salimbeni, already the Provveditore of the Decima Ecclesiastica, "an intelligent and capable person who has been in the Collegio, Otto, Conservatori di Leggi, and other [magistracies] and outside [of Florence] at Montepulciano and Pietrasanta. . . . Most recently he was among the Consoli di Mare."32 Both of these were men of mature years who had first entered office through the regular procedure prescribed for the magistracies, and were presenting themselves for offices in the permanent staff. But it was difficult to counteract the influence of ducal secretaries, men at the Court, senators, and the Provveditori of the magistracies themselves. The names of men ultimately appointed were by no means 30

ASF, Tratte, F 629, "Note et informazioni," 354-438.

" Ibid., 144. " Ibid., 388.

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

always those sent from the Tratte to the Segreteria di Stato. Advance­ ment through patronage was no novelty for the patricians, and the re­ sult of their penetration of the Court was the assertion of a system of preferment that inevitably undermined the regularity of appointments. The petitions make clear that employment was an objective of men seeking protection and assistance. Thus in 1603, for the place of one of the ufficiali of the Decima, an office given a mano, the successful peti­ tioner, from an old patrician house, was "Mario di Buoninsegna Attavanti, most humble servant of Your Highness [who] asks to receive the grace of election as one of the officials of the Decime and Vendite, so that he can carry forward his poor family by which he is heavily bur­ dened, having nine children, and seven daughters, and he sixty-five years of age." 33 Failure in business frequently gave rise to requests for employment. In 1604 a candidate for one of the Scrivani of the Gabella del Sale was Ridolfo di Francesco Carnesecchi, "an agent who has failed in an accomandita of Bernardo Davanzati at Venice, but is otherwise knowledgeable of bookkeeping." 34 In 1694 the successful applicant for the place of Capitano of Borgo S. Sepolcro, among ten others, was "Buonaventura di Diego Ambrogi, who has been employed for many years in different business ventures. Now he is unemployed." 35 As the system of patronage developed, men of the Court, and par­ ticularly the ducal secretaries, assumed a central place in the advance­ ment of aspirants, first the Concini under Cosimo I and Francesco I, and then the clan of the Usimbardi from 1580s to the 1620s. Piero Usimbardi, a lawyer from Colle and the first secretary of Ferdinando I, managed to have himself appointed bishop of Arezzo in 1589 and brought forward his three brothers: Usimbardo, made bishop of Colle in 1592; Claudio, who had three offices in Florence in 1604; and Lo­ renzo, who was first a secretary of state, then the Capitano di Giustizia of Siena, and finally, before his death in 1636, the Auditore of the Riformagioni, a senator, and a councillor of Ferdinando II. 36 Among the papers of the Tratte in 1604 is a letter addressed to Lorenzo Usimbardi concerning the selection of the Podesta of Campi: 33 34 35 36

Ibid., 51. Ibid., 572. ASF, Tratte, F 686, "Note et informaziom," 91. ASF, Carte Sebrigondi, 5359.

PART IV

I thank your Lordship infinitely for the favor procured for me from [the duke], that the Podesteria of Campi should have been given to M/ Marco Falcucci. I ask that my gratitude be communicated to His Highness, assuring him that I count this among the other graces I daily receive. . . . I only desire the com­ mand that I may perform some exchange for so many courtesies. It may be that M/ Giovanbattista BufFoli has spoken to you of another service for the same subject, but having this one Podesteria, there is no need to think of the other.37

Other places were also being assigned to men of the Court in this year. For a place as Ajuto to one of the Scrivani of the Monte Comune, Lo­ renzo del Cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, a kinsman of the painter and archi­ tect of the Court under Cosimo I, "of reasonable intelligence and good will," was favored over eight others. For a place as Ajuto in the chan­ cery of the fisc, the successful candidate, among thirteen petitioners, was "Francesco di Bastiano Tinghi, brother of the Tinghi [the court diarist] who serves in the household of Your Highness . . . a good youth, of good will."38 First Secretary Andrea Cioli arranged appointments in the 1620s and 1630s, as did Giovanbattista Gondi, Cioli's successor, during the 1640s and 1650s. Gondi was the first of the ducal secretaries to be selected within the elite. He had served as a youth in the Giacomini bank in France at Lyons, and was in contact with the branch of the Gondi es­ tablished in France as dukes of Retz, which probably influenced his ap­ pointment as Tuscan ambassador to the court of Louis XIII in 1621, where he remained through the 1630s. Alessandro De Cerchi, who owed his rise and first appointment to Gondi, wrote later in his Ricordi: The [dukes] had never conferred up to that time such an important office [as first secretary] on a Florentine Gentleman, the secretaries were subjects of the state, but never natives of the Dominant City. Thus, in the person of Gondi our nobility began to enjoy this coveted honor, and he immediately took care to introduce his compatriots into other vacancies as these appeared.

Cerchi reflected that in his own youthful appointment in the Segreteria di Stato he had been brought forward by Gondi among "several noble youths thought most likely to succeed."39 Among names of pages of 37 38 39

ASF, Tratte, P 629, "Note et informazioni," 405. Ibid., 135. ASF, Carte Cerchi, F 167, 81.

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

the court for these years were the names Medici, Guicciardini, Alamanni, Strozzi.40 Senators exercised an influence over appointments in favor of kins­ men and clients. Among the Niccolini, Lorenzo di Piero, the secretary of the Tratte in 1604 and a senator, held three subsidiary offices. Among his sons, the eldest, Piero, became archbishop of Florence; the second, Simone, succeeded his father as Assessore of the Nove and as Assessore of the Arte della Lana; the third, Antonio, became Provveditore of the Monte del Sale, the fourth appears not to have held office; and the fifth, Matteo, was made a senator in 1649.'" Senator Alamanno Arrighi (1620-1700), the secretary of the Tratte under Cosimo III, clearly exercised much influence. His first office, in 1650, was as Ragioniere of the Nove. He then became the Provveditore of the Dogana in 1653, a senator in 1658, Provveditore of the Abbondanza in 1665, secretary of the Tratte in 1667, and Provveditore of the Capitani di Parte in 1687. He held all four of these last places in 1695. In addition, his son Niccolo was employed as an assistant in the Tratte in 1685 when he was twenty-three, and later acquired an office in the Nove, while a grandson, Giuseppe di Niccolo Arrighi was made Camarlingo of the Arte della Seta in 1733 when he was only nineteen.42 In general, of the thirty-five senators living in 1551 only eight, or 23 percent, were themselves employed or had kin in permanent offices. In 1604, 34 per­ cent of the senators had offices or kin in office, while in 1695 and 1736 the proportion had risen to 72 and 76 percent, respectively. The in­ crease of family interest over appointments among senators seems clear. One wonders whether relaxation of control reached the extent of ve­ nality—the sale of offices as was practiced in France, Rome, and Venice during the seventeenth century. Venality in French, Roman, and Vene­ tian practice was the open public sale of offices, sanctioned, regulated, and practiced by the state. In France venality developed from the fif­ teenth century onward as an extraordinary means for raising revenue by the crown, and then became entrenched in the seventeenth century to the extent that the rights of officeholders over the offices they had 40

ASF, Manoscritti,

41

Passerini, Famiglia Niccolini.

42

ASF, Carte Sebrigondi, 194.

F 321,

925((.

PART IV

bought were acknowledged first as hereditary and then as ennobling. At Venice, venality developed in a different but similar way. Here there was a difference similar to the one in Florence between citizen magis­ trates, who were nobles of the Consiglio Maggiore, and a staff of min­ isterial officials. The sale of particular offices had been customary in Venice at moments of fiscal crisis, and venality became a general prac­ tice in the seventeenth century during the long and exhausting crisis of the Turkish wars. Rotating offices in the Venetian magistracies were not affected, and the number of permanent offices infeudo, that is, sold on an hereditary basis, appears always to have been small. In sixteenthand seventeenth-century Rome the sale of offices was a common fiscal recourse, and became an important reason for the expansion in number of offices in the papal bureaucracy.43 In French, Venetian, and Roman practice, the sale of offices developed chiefly in response to desperate deficiencies of public revenue, but other factors were also involved. There was inevitably a temptation of men with wealth, when there were no better ways of acquiring influence, to corrupt officeholders or buy offices privately as a means of entering the officeholding group. This was a second type of venality, which proceeded more privately in Spain, as it did at Milan and Naples under the Spanish viceroys.44 There was no public sale of offices in Florence, and venality was not provided for in any of the ducal legislation. Venality was of the second type: a private traffic in preferments that operated between officeholder and office seeker. There had been public sale of particular offices under the Republic, just as there was at Venice, notably the places as Ufficiali di Banco, men attached to the Monte Comune who were given surety of office in exchange for loans to the state. The offices of Ufficiali di Monte were again sold for a brief period under Cosimo I. A provision in 155 8, a year of financial need following the Sienese War, named eight wealthy citizens who for loan of 24,000 Scudi to the Camera Ducale were made Ufficiali of the Monte Comune. They were to retain the of­ fices as surety against repayment of the loan.45 But thereafter the Uffi4!

Swart, Sale of Offices, 5-67, 82-89. For French practice, see Mousnier, La venahte des

offices, 1-92 et passim. For Rome, see Delumeau, Kic economique et sociale de Rome, 11, 76882. For Venice, see R. Mousnier, "La venahte des offices a Venise," 8-14. 44

Swart, Sale of Offices, 19-44, 87-88. FortheDuchyofMilaninthesixteenthcentury,

see Chabod, "Usi e abusi nell' amministrazione dello stato di Milano a mezzo il '500," in Studi Storici in Onore di G. Volpe (Florence, 1958), 95-191. 45

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, m, 235-37. I7S

I. G. Zocchi, View of the Uffizi, or Rather the Court of Florence, Taken from the Loggia Near the Arno (1744). (Houghton Library, Harvard University)

2. G. Vasari, Cosimo I De Medici (Duke, 1537-1574), with councillors and troops at the relief of Serravalle. Behind the duke are Noferi Bartolini, Archbishop of Pisa, and Lelio Torelli, Secretary, Auditore della Giurisdizione, and Auditore della Camera. (Florence, Palazzo Vecchio. Photo, Alinari)

3.J. Callot, Ferdinando IDe Medici (Duke, 1588-1609), with attendants, supervising construction of an aqueduct at Pisa. (Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza Beni Artistici e Storici di Firenze)

4. F. Palma, Pietro Usimbardi ( 1 5 3 9 - 1 6 1 2 ) , Secretary to Ferdinando I and B i s h o p of Colle. (Florence, Sta. Trinita. Photo, Alinari)

5· Vincenzo Da Filieaia (1642-1707), Senator, Commissario of Volterra, Commissario of Pisa, and Secretary of the Tratte. (Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza Beni Artistici e Storici di Firenze)

6. Marchese Carlo Ginori (1702-57), Senator, Secretary of the Tratte, Secretary of the Riformagioni, and Governor of Livorno. (Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto di Disegm) 7. Pompeo Neri (1706-76), Secretary of the Council of Regency for Francis Stephen, Councillor of State under Pietro Leopoldo. (From A . Ridolfi, Elogio di Pompeo Neri. Padova, 1817.)

8. Pietro Leopoldo (Duke, 1765-90), as a young man. (Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto di Disegm)

9. Central Italy and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the Eighteenth Century. (From N . Sansone, "Italia Divisa ne' suoi Regni, Principati, Ducati et altri Dominii Siccome al Presente si Ritrova." R o m e , n.d.)

TRAINING AND A P P O I N T M E N T

ciali of the Monte reverted to being offices assigned on a regular basis. Fiefs, monopolies, and other privileges were sold by the dukes, but there was not a sale of offices. Still, there was bargaining and, in all likelihood, a private selling of offices that grew out of the practice of granting reversions or sopravvivenze, that is, expectations of succession into office after the death of the actual incumbent. Reversion was a legitimate practice, one that had been foreseen in certain cases under the Republic; it was common practice that when citizens drawn for offices in the magistracies died before the completion of their terms, kinsmen would replace them. But for offices given a mano for longer terms, substitution was a different matter, and in the sixteenth century this was permitted by the Tratte with some hesitation. Nonetheless, it was not uncommon for sons who had served as private assistants to their fathers to attempt to succeed them. Thus in 1603 a successful applicant had written: Domenico di Roberto Altoviti, most humble servant of your Highness, petitions with all due reverence, that due to the death of Roberto Altoviti, the office of Gabella delle Bestie [in the Capitani di Parte] is vacant. Because of the duties of the said Roberto [also] as Provveditore of the Capitani di Parte, the office has been exercised for nearly six years by the supplicant, and since he wishes to remain in the service of your Highness, he petitions that in memory of the faithful service of his father the office be granted to him.*6 In the same year, Antonio di Benedetto Giminiani petitioned for the office of Provveditore of the Magistrato dei Pupilli, previously held by his father. As one of the chancellors of the Tratte explained: "Benedetto, his father, and before him his grandfather . . . have served continually and well in this office for nearly a hundred years. Since the office has been vacant, no other petitioners besides the son have appeared, partly because the office is of little value, but also, perhaps, because of the long service and experience of the aspirant, who since his father was aged and in need substituted for him on many occasions, [thus] the office is thought to belong to him more than to others." 47 Antonio Giminiani was duly granted the reversion, but it should be noted that upon his death in 1632, the office of Provveditore of the Pupilli ceased to continue in his family. Subentry into office does not appear to have been difficult to arrange 46 ASF, Tratte, F 629, "Note et informaziom," 204. " Ibid., 113.

179

PART IV

and may even have been a usual way for young men to gain experience and move upward. Appointment to office was generally made initially for a two-year renewable term, which then became permanent, a beneplacito as the phrase ran—at the pleasure of the duke—but usually continuing until death. There were no formal arrangements for retire­ ment and no pensions in a modern sense. Men moved from office to office, but most functionaries once appointed remained in office until they died. One can see this from the acts of appointment in the list for 1695, which in many cases state the reason for the vacancy of the offices being filled. In the Segreteria di Stato, Andrea Cioli was appointed first secretary of state in 1626, "having passed to the other life Senator Curzio Picchena our secretary of state." In February 1641 Giovanbattista Gondi was appointed to the same office, "following the death of Bali Cioli, our first secretary of state." Pierfrancesco De Ricci was ap­ pointed secretary of the Tratte in 1624, "having passed to the other life Dott. M. Cristofano Spini." In the Riformagioni, Matteo Mercati was appointed first minister in 1677, "in the place of M. Frosino Brosi de­ ceased." In the Magistrato Supremo, Piero Angeli was appointed to the office of Auditore, "vacant because of the death of M. Cosimo Farsetti" in 1689."48 Mortality in midlife was a more likely occurrence in the sev­ enteenth century than it is today, but many officeholders lived to be­ come quite elderly men. With shorter terms in office, the Republic had not had to confront this problem to such an extent. The bureaucracy was growing; but with longer tenure of office between first appoint­ ment and death, it did not grow rapidly enough for the appointment and promotion of young men to be achieved easily. Blocked from reg­ ular appointment at an early age young men sought to enter offices with the hope of eventual succession and often found themselves ex­ ercising more than one office concurrently while receiving only a frac­ tion of the salary. Thus in 1650 the secretary of the Tratte wrote with regard to his first chancellor, Ser Francesco Fiorvigna: Bent down with the weight of eighty years, he can no longer perform the du­ ties he has exercised for so many years to the satisfaction of the public and of his superiors. Since this place requires a capable and faithful man, . . . for some years I have brought in for his assistant Ser Alessandro Dami, the Camarlingo 48

ASF, Misc. Med., P 696.

TRAINING AND APPOINTMENT

of the Mercanzia, one of the best men that could be found. Since he has expe­ rience [in the Tratte], and a good assistant [in the Mercanzia] . . . he can con­ tinue to assist us, reserving for the said Fiorvigna for his own lifetime the actual title and such recompense as is agreed between them.49

In such cases, subentry could develop into private bargaining, a prac­ tice against which prohibitions were directed in 1587 and in 1613. Ac­ cording to the provision of 1613, "some ministers who have entered of­ fices a beneplacito with the right to serve as substitutes against the will of the Prince, and without any act [of the Magistrato Supremo], have alienated their offices to other persons. . . uncustomary acts of bad ex­ ample and worse consequence." Abuses of this kind were referred to the jurisdiction of the Otto and Conservatori di Leggi.50 But the practice of subentry continued. Several cases of this kind were acknowledged as de facto appointments by the Tratte in 1695 and 1736. In 1695 Ottavio Parissi, chancellor of the Monte del Sale, peti­ tioned for "the grace that he be allowed to substitute in the Chancery of the [Gabella del] Sale [in the person of] Bernardino Anziani, who has served in the office for some years and has agreed to serve with the same salary and provision that he draws from his present office, leaving to [Parissi] for his lifetime, all the profits and proceeds."51 In 1736, "Spinello Castellani. . . represents that his uncle has held the office of Scrivano [in the Gabella del Sale] for thirty-five years. Desiring to oc­ cupy this office, . . . he asks the grace . . . of a sopravvivenza to succeed after the death of the said Verdi, to whom will remain for his natural life all proceeds, salaries, and fees."52 The granting of reversions made it possible for officeholders to designate their successors, although judging from the few incidences of succession of men with the same surnames in the same office, the passing on of offices from father to son was uncommon. Still, subentry limited control over appointments by the Tratte and provided a further means of patronage by the elite. It might be noted that prohibition of entry into office through subentry and reversion was among the first acts of reform of the "abuses" of the Medici system by the regents for Francis Stephen of Lorraine in 1739. 49 s° 51 52

ASF, Tratte, F 661, "Note et informazioni," 104-105. Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xn, 58-60 (1587); xiv, 402-403 (1613). ASF, Tratte, F 686, "Note et informazioni," 205. ASF, Tratte, F 705, "Note et informazioni," 503.

IO CAREERS AND SALARIES

Considering the influence that could be exercised over appointments, one wonders what kind of men from the elite acquired offices, and what patterns their careers assumed. The abuses of patrimonialism in­ creased during the seventeenth century and grew partly out of a laxity of rules for appointment and advancement, which led to subentry into office and to the large increase in plural officeholding. Abuses also grew out of the collection of salaries and other opportunities that de­ veloped for personal gain. These problems undoubtedly reflected the persistence of communal habits of participation in government that the elite had inherited from the Republic, but also from a decrease in public accountability for administrative acts that developed in the shadow of the ducal Court. The seventeenth-century economic downturn gave further incentive for the patricians to make the bureaucracy into a fam­ ily resource. Corruption had existed under the Republic, but in the sev­ enteenth century this problem grew.1 The growth of abuses is also re­ flected in the changing pattern of patrician careers and by the nature of official, and unofficial, salaries. Patrician Careers Lines of careers can be indicative of effectiveness of administration, and in more rationally organized states than Medicean Tuscany the careers of functionaries might be expected to follow relatively consistent lines. After training, examination, and appointment, the position occupied might be expected to reflect training, and advancement might then proceed from rank to rank in a particular area of administration until retirement. Specialization has become a hallmark of modern bureau­ cracies, but it had not yet been achieved in sixteenth- to eighteenthcentury Tuscany, where training was not well developed and patricians moved irregularly from magistracy to magistracy and from sector to sector of the bureaucracy through their administrative careers. 1

On this in general, see Chabod, "Usi e abusi nell' ammimstrazione."

CAREERS AND SALARIES

An important factor in the pattern of careers was the age at which men entered office. In European bureaucracies since the early eight­ eenth century, officeholders recruited from elites have tended to enter office at very early ages, so that practical training is accomplished largely in service. To this can be contrasted more open systems in which men enter office at a later age after having attained experience in civilian life.2 The first pattern, with early entry into office, developed through the aristocratic bureaucracies of the old regime and has per­ sisted in more modern professional bureaucracies. The second pattern, involving lateral movement between civilian life followed by public service and entry into office at a later age, may have still been more typ­ ical of an earlier period and of republics such as Florence. It is still re­ flected currently to some extent in the experience of high-ranking func­ tionaries in the United States. The pattern of careers under the Medici system was changing from the more open pattern, in which men en­ tered office at later ages, to the more closed pattern of early entry and in-service experience more typical of bureaucratic elites of the eight­ eenth and nineteenth centuries. The changing pattern of careers can be shown from a more detailed sample of patricians in the Senate and permanent offices selected alpha­ betically for the four years (Table ίο. i): all patricians and nobles in in­ termediary and lower-ranking offices with surnames beginning with the letters A-D were selected, and senators and men in the permanent boards and higher-ranking offices with surnames beginning with the letters A—M. Thus senators, for whom more information is available, are more represented than others. Information was collected generally about age, education, marital status, successive offices held, and, for the years 1695 and 1736, when names of series of men in office are avail­ able, about the experience of fathers in the bureaucracy. In the earlier years patrician officeholders were relatively older men, with a median age above fifty, but in the eighteenth century they were slightly younger. Indeed, more than half of the men in 1551 were aged sixty or over, and in 1604 and 1695 more than a third were over age sixty. The men in the entourage of Cosimo I had been quite mature men. Under the Republic, regulations of the Tratte had given a pre2

For discussion of these two different "ascriptive" and "deferred achievement"

models, see Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite, 3-26.

(63)

56

62

INT

TOTAL

(57)

58

TOTAL

41

41

45

56

53

59

UP

INT

TOTAL

32

30

35

45

51

UP

INT

TOTAL

MS

(7)

(14)

(26)

(18)

(15)

(14)

(59)

(68)

KEY

=

F/S

(12)

(15)

(27)

(4)

(8)

(13)

(9)

(3)

Off.

Oth

Yr

=

(44)

(52)

(9)

(50)

Emp

=

in different branches

2/Or Diff

22

TOTAL

(52)

(78)

(73)

(18)

(63)

(87)

(45)

(12)

(15)

(27)

(4)

(4)

(48)

(22)

(27)

(82)

(38)

(13)

(55)

(3)

(54)

(3)

(19)

(81)

(18)

(19)

(81)

(45)

(25)

(75)

(82)

% father not employed, Unk =

(35)

(9)

(7)

(9)

(11)

(7)

(10)

(6)

(12)

(-1)

(13)

8

66

= father employed

(26)

27

11 (15)

28 (39)

(18)

72

(33)

(18)

11

31

58

27

30

(36)

(29)

(5)

(7)

23

=

%

% held more than one office, Se« W/i % m the same branch of administration, Dtff Br

=

— % father's employment unknown, Only

= % lawyer, FEmp

(14)

(22)

(5)

(27)

(82)

(25)

(10)

(36)

(35)

(17)

(32)

(7)

(16)

(2)

(19)

(25)

49

(13)

Br.

(100)

(13)

Br.

Same

5

(13)

Off.

More

22

(4)

Off.

W/1

Sen.

(100)

(17)

'Off.

Than

More

(100)

(100)

Yr.

Yr.

Off. Oth.

Only 1 Off.

FUNCTIONARIES

% marital status unknown, Dot

(3)

(4)

(9)

(7)

(10)

(47) (42)

(9)

(3)

Unk.

(55)

(32)

Emp

F/N

Sample)

% previously held another office; More Than i Off

% father held same office, F/N

% held only one office in the year; Off

=

(32)

(11)

(36)

(50)

(29)

(13)

(9)

(52)

FSen.

(A-D and A-M

% senator with one permanent office, 2/Or More Off. % heid two or more offices. Same Br

1 Off. Yr

Off. -

I0.I

= % unmarried, MS Unk. =

(53)

(44)

(82)

(50)

(51)

(43)

(36)

(65)

FEmp

= % married, Unm

= % father senator, F/S Off

AFO = Age at first office, Mar

in offices, FSen.

(18) (9)

(7)

(27)

(14)

(8)

(3)

(9)

(10)

(7)

(7)

(9)

(10)

(5)

(18)

Dot.

(9)

(64)

(79)

(19)

(27)

(53)

(28)

(30)

(27)

(45)

(43)

(27)

(29)

(6)

(24)

(33)

(50)

(4)

(33)

(50)

(60)

(9)

Unk

(65)

(19)

(19)

(26)

(4)

(5)

(5)

Umn.

NOTES. Numbers in parentheses are percentages

43

52

47

SEN

1736

47

62

SEN

1695

(48)

43

INT

(50)

58

UP

(7°)

60

SEN

1604.

(45)

47

(40)

65

(86)

Mar.

UP

AFO

SEN

1551

Age

TABLE

A G E , M A R T I A L S T A T U S , A N D O F F I C E H O L D I N G E X P E R I E N C E OF P A T R I C I A N

CAREERS AND SALARIES

mium to age, but the transition to permanent officeholding may have further increased the age of officeholders. In all four years, senators were consistently the oldest, their minimum age having been set in 1532 at forty years, followed by men in the higher-ranking and then the intermediary-level offices. Age at first appointment was similarly ad­ vanced, although it is difficult to be sure of a trend in this case, since the ages at which men first entered office are for the most part unknown in 1551 and 1604. In the sixteenth century, men frequently had their first experience in the magistracies and only appeared in the permanent of­ fices at a later date. Selection for the Buonuomini of the Collegio, the ceremonial office that conferred habilitation in the scrutinies, was often the first step in careers. In the sample for 1551 Alessandro Davanzati was veduto for the Buonuomini in 1535, when he was thirty, and ob­ tained his next office, a place among the Capitaniofthe Bigallo in 1541, when he was thirty-six. He did not obtain a permanent office, as Provveditore of the Capitani di Parte, until 1549 when he was forty-four. Among the officeholders in 1604, Donato Dell' Antella had been among the veduti for the Collegio in 1554, when he was fourteen, while he did not achieve a permanent office until 1587, when he was fortyseven, and then became a senator in 1590 when he was fifty. In general, appointment to permanent offices in the sixteenth century was an event of later life and mature age, an honor conferred after experience in the ordinary round of civic life outside of the bureaucracy or in the mag­ istracies. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, long careers in the bureaucracy became more common, with appointment coming at an early age. Among men in the sample in 1695, three-fifths, and in 1736 two-fifths, had obtained their first office when they were above the age of forty. But the new pattern, in which men were appointed at a rela­ tively early age, so that their entire careers were passed in ducal service, advancing from office to office, also appears frequently. A third of the men had obtained their first permanent office before reaching the age of forty in the sample for 1695, and nearly two-thirds before age forty in 1736. Early appointment provided for more continuous service than had been usual for magistrates, and it is tempting to think that when men spent longer periods in office their careers developed along more reg­ ular lines. Some men owed early appointment to training in law, and

PART IV

patrician lawyers were likely to enter office at a relatively early age. Thus, among officeholders in 1736, Guglielmo Altoviti, a lawyer, had acquired the office of Assessore of Or San Michele in 1715, when he was thirty-two, to which he added three other offices before being made a senator in 1736, when he was fifty-three. But early entry into office could also result from patronage, subentry, and lax procedures of appointment, which permitted infringement of older requirements of minimum age. Francesco di Niccolo Gondi, a lawyer and the son of a senator, acquired his first office as Provveditore of the Gabella dei Contratti in 1719, when he was twenty-three, and was made a senator in 1721, well under the legal age, when he was twenty-nine. Eight of the forty-nine senators in 1736 had been appointed before the legal age of forty, and six men from the sample of officeholders in 1736 had ob­ tained first appointments to permanent offices before reaching the age of twenty. Relationships with family and kin were important in securing ap­ pointments at such early ages. Considering the relatively small propor­ tion of sons who married in the seventeenth century, it may not seem surprising that a relatively large proportion of officeholders were un­ married. The same effort to preserve patrimonies that limited oppor­ tunities for marriage required families to find means of support for un­ married sons. Marital status is uncertain for many officeholders, but among senators, the group for which information is most available, 86 percent are known to have been married in 1551, 70 percent in 1604., 65 percent in 1695, and 79 percent in 1736, a definitive celibacy rate of 14 to 35 percent. Many unmarried sons found employment in the bureau­ cracy. Among three surviving sons of Senator Guglielmo di Guglielmo Altoviti (1597-1654), a figure at the Court of Ferdinando II, only the eldest, who was also later a senator, married. Ofthe two younger sons, one became a priest and the other, Simone, was educated in law and followed a career in the bureaucracy. He was appointed Assessore of the Arte dei Fabbricanti in 1665 when he was thirty, and then became Assessore of the Nove in 1688, Giudice of the Arte della Lana in 1694, and a senator in 1695.3 In another line of the same family, there were four surviving sons of Pier Martino di Alessandro Altoviti, a younger son and a soldier of fortune, who married in Spain in 1678. Because of J

Passerini, Famiglia

Altoviti,

170-73.

CAREERS AND SALARIES

small family resources, none of his four sons married. One became a priest and the other three were employed in the bureaucracy. The eldest, Alessandro, obtained an office in the Nove in 1715 when he was thirty-two; the next, Lorenzo, obtained a minor office in the Decima in 1719 when he was thirty-one; and the youngest, Pier Giuseppe, obtained an office in the Otto in 1731 when he was thirty-five.4 But officeholding was of too great importance to be relinquished only to the employment of unmarried sons, and the majority of patrician functionaries were married men and heads of families, able to maintain themselves from their own patrimonies, who held office as an honorable family tradition. Among the siblings of the ducal secretary and senator Alessandro De Cerchi—an eldest son who married—only one sister married, while five became nuns. Of his two brothers, one became a canon of the Cathedral and the other died unmarried at age forty-six, but neither held office.5 Here, an eldest son was favored, both in marriage and in preferment for office. In a branch of the Ubaldini of the same generation, a house with meager resources, six sons and two daughters survived infancy. Both daughters became nuns. The eldest surviving son, Roberto, became a priest of the Oratory; the second, Giovanbattista, married, inherited the family property along with his five brothers, and eventually found an office as Cassiere of the Depositeria Generale in 1674 when he was forty. Three brothers entered the Church, and a fourth became a Knight of Malta.6 In this case a second son carried on the family line, but there was the same matching of officeholding and marriage. Thus the relationship between fathers and sons was quite important, and in the samples for 1695 and 1736 about half of patrician officeholders followed the same careers in the bureaucracy as their fathers, a quite high degree of father-son replication.7 The fathers of senators were more likely to have held offices than fathers in any other group, and half of the senators in 1695 and 1736 had fathers who had also been senators. Among other types of officeholders 8 percent in the sample from 4

Ibid., 94. ASF, Carte Cerchi, F 167; BNF, Manoscritti Passenni, 8, "Cerchi." 6 ASF, Carte Ubaldini-Vai-Geppi, F 587, "Memone di Famigha," BNF, Manoscritti Passerini, 8, "Ubaldini." 7 Armstrong, European Administrative Elite, 81, estimates about 44 percent replication for eighteenth-century French elite officeholders. !

187

PART IV

1695 and 12 percent from 1736, had exactly the same office held pre­ viously by their fathers. Girolamo di Andrea Gerini succeeded the year before his father's death in 1661, when he was thirty-seven, into a place as one of the Cassieri of the Depositeria Generale. Lorenzo Cambi suc­ ceeded as the Provveditore of the Arte dei Vaiai and Quoiai the year of his father's death in 1668. Among officeholders in 1736, Giovanfrancesco Aldobrandini, Girolamo Mini, and Cammillo Capponi held of­ fices their fathers had held previously in the Decima Ecclesiastica, Stinche, and Decima. Successions in office rarely continued for more than two generations, but were persistent enough to indicate that fam­ ily interest was important in placing sons in office at an early age. It seems very likely that the increase in pluralism during the seven­ teenth century was related to the lengthening of careers in a situation of lax regulation of appointment and promotion. There was little plural­ ism of officeholding in the sixteenth century. No patricians in the sam­ ple held more than one office in 15 51, although some of the Auditori of Cosimo I occupied more than one place in this year. Pluralism was more common in 1604, and became very common in 1695 and 1736. It tended to develop as officeholders advanced from office to office. Just as there was no procedure for retirement in the Medici bureaucracy, there was little order in promotions. Men might move from lowerranking to higher-ranking and from lower-paying to higher-paying places, but in acquiring new offices they tended to keep the ones they had previously held, or they accumulated additional modest and lowpaying offices as supplemental sinecures. To be sure, many men had only one office throughout their whole careers: 63 and 44 percent of men in the samples in 1695 and 1736, respectively. But men with only one office were concentrated chiefly at an inter­ mediary level. As they advanced to higher levels of rank, the tendency to collect more than one office grew. In 1695, 54 percent of patrician senators in the sample, 55 percent of the upper-level officeholders, but only 13 percent of the men at an intermediary level had more than one office. In 1736, 82 percent of the senators, 27 percent of the patricians in upper-level offices, and 22 percent at an intermediary level had more than one office. Among officeholders in 1695 Giovanbattista di Piero Antinori began his career in 1678, when he was thirty-two, as one of the Scrivani of the Nove, became a Ragioniere of the Novein 1679, and then, after appearing in the magistracies, was made a senator in 1695,

CAREERS AND SALARIES

after which he continued to keep the office of Ragioniere of the Nove. Among officeholders in 1736, Guglielmo Altoviti began his career in 1715, when he was thirty-two, as the Assessore of Or San Michele. He acquired additional places as Assessore of the Abbondanza and Assessore of the Arte dei Fabbricanti in 1719 and 1720, served in the magis­ tracies, became Provveditore of Or San Michele, and ultimately was made a senator in 1736, when he still occupied all four of the offices he had obtained earlier. There were different kinds of pluralism, some of which were legiti­ mate and functional aspects of administration. Key men, such as the Auditore Fiscale, Depositario Generale, and Soprassindaco of the Nove, intervened in more than one place ex officio. The offices were designated as ex officio in the lists from the Tratte and have not been counted as plural offices here. Other cases involved situations similar to holding offices ex officio. Thus Clemente di Niccolo Degli Albizzi held the offices both of Doganiere of Florence and of Ragioniere of the Dogana, while Niccolo di Piero Baldovinetti, the Sotto Provveditore of the Abbondanza, was also employed as Provveditore of the Grascia, the second provisioning magistracy, so that his duties in the second of­ fice were parallel to those in the first. In 1695 Onofrio Bracci was em­ ployed both as Provveditore and Sotto Provveditore of the Farine. In 1736 Senator Marchese Cammillo Coppoli was at the same time one of the Protettori and the Provveditore of the Monte di Pieta. In such cases, pluralism may have been a reasonable way of combining duties. Law­ yers, especially, were likely to be employed in several places. In 1736 Pierfilippo Mormorai held four offices. He was an Auditore of the Consulta, Auditore of the Capitani di Parte, Assessore of the Grascia, and Assessore of the Monte Redimibile. A demand for experienced lawyers might well account for such double, triple, or quadruple service. Holding more than one ex officio office or more than one office in the same magistracy, or being a lawyer in more than one place or even a senator with one additional office might have some reason. But to progress in three years from being the Ragioniere of the Nove to being Provveditore of the Dogana, and then to hold office simultaneously as senator, Provveditore of the Abbondanza, secretary of the Tratte, and Provveditore of the Capitani di Parte, as did Alamanno Arrighi in 1695, or to be at the same time one of the Protettori of the Abbondanza, a

PART IV

senator, the Provveditore of the Magistrato dei Pupilli, and a Protettore of the Monte Redimibile, as was Bartolommeo Buondelmonte in the same year, was surely a different matter. Nearly a fifth of patricians in the sample with more than one office in 1695, and slightly more than a quarter in 1736, were employed in offices scattered in this way throughout different sectors of the bureaucracy. In these cases plural­ ism signaled the creation of fiefs of private influence by nobles of the Court. But such abuses involved not only the number of offices held. They also involved official, and unofficial, salaries and other means for realizing private gain. Salaries rose in the seventeenth century, but were still not high enough to meet patrician needs. The effective level of re­ muneration involved the number of offices held, and also often in­ volvement in some other type of corruption. The Trend of Salaries Salaries, as we will see in Part V, could make up only a small part of family income, although their composition, size, and, more impor­ tant, relative sizes for magistrates as opposed to ministri were shifting, a further indication of the increasing importance of the permanent staff. The mode of payment is also an indication of administrative pro­ cedure. The lists of officeholders provide much evidence about salaries of functionaries. However, this presents problems of analysis, chiefly because salaries were made up of different components: provvisioni, the regular official salaries, as well as mancie or iticerti, irregular tips and fees. Such components are reported for many offices, but with unequal regularity from magistracy to magistracy and from list to list. Tuscany, like most of Europe, was also beset by a sharp rise in prices in the late sixteenth century, and gradual inflation continued through the seven­ teenth century, decreasing the relative value of money. Still, the trend of salaries is of interest, as Federico Chabod has dem­ onstrated for officeholders in the Spanish administration of the Duchy of Milan.8 At Milan, the price rise of the sixteenth century affected the way in which officeholders were paid, and contributed to the growth of administrative abuses. The provvisioni, or official salaries, in Milan remained relatively fixed during the price rise, creating a difficult situ8

Chabod, "Stipendi nominali e busta paga effettiva," and "Usi e abusi nell' amministrazione dello stato di Milano."

CAREERS AND SALARIES

ation for officials who were caught with low salaries in a period of both rising prices and a slowdown of the Milanese economy. The Milanese bureaucracy already experienced a pattern of corruption, and the Span­ ish government was more than willing to let the local population share any increase in the cost of administration. Thus officeholders at Milan were allowed to improve their situation by raising the level of incerti, or fees exacted from petitioners, which increased the onerousness of Spanish administration. In early modern bureaucracies generally, the high cost of paying for growing officialdom was often met through such oblique forms of taxation. This, too, was characteristic of patrimonialism. Chabod's model sheds light on the quality of administration at Milan but it does not fully represent the situation at Florence, which had the same low official salaries, rising prices, and opportunities to profit from fees and casual gain as Milan. But Florence appears to have had greater elasticity in the level of official salaries, so that officeholders were not expected to rely so heavily on fees. The gradual upward ad­ justment ofprovvisioni and the relatively smaller proportion of total sal­ aries represented by incerti may also indicate a relatively less onerous quality of administration in Tuscany than in Lombardy. The corrup­ tion of the Medici system was more covert, in the sense of involving private manipulations of office for gain, which was liable to prosecu­ tion. The number of offices held, rather than the size of incerti, appears to have been a chief determinant of level of salary. But corruption of other types, like pluralism, also increased through the seventeenth cen­ tury. The anticipation that officeholders would receive supplementary fees was established under the Republic, when fees often took the form of foodstuffs, lodging, or other perquisites of office. In the seventeenth century, perquisites in kind were generally collected in cash and took the form of mancie, official gifts at regular intervals during the year, or incerti, fees exacted from petitioners for the execution of official acts. The mancie came from the casse of the magistracies themselves and were paid out on festive occasions in the name of the duke.9 But generally 9

Thus, a notebook of Niccolo Gianni in 1751, when he was one of the Protettori of

the Monte del Sale, contains entries for a total of about 20 Scudi in mancie collected from the Monte at Candlemas, Easter, the Feast of S. Giovanni Battista, Ascension Day, All Saints' Day, and Christmas. This was about a third of the nominal prouvisione he received

PART IV

mattcie were quite small and can be considered to have been part of the incerti, the second and more considerable irregular source of fees, which derived from a variety of special arrangements. Incerti might be collected from petitioners in the law courts for drawing up, attesting, and copying documents, or they might consist of small fines or other perquisites, such as the one of selling broken or abandoned merchan­ dise, as enjoyed by Ruberto Pepi as Guardiano of the Dogana in the 1620s, or the small sums collected in the Tratte at the moment men en­ tered office. This was an accepted and legal part of the system distinct from fraud and embezzlement, which were recognized crimes subject to investigation by the Soprassindaci, Sindaci of the Ruota, or other courts. Much routine administrative work was liable to some special recompense, and fees could amount to an attractive sum at the end of a year. Indeed, their collection was defended staunchly through the eighteenth century by observers and administrators alike as a necessary incentive to spur on the diligence and industry of officeholders. Still, too much zeal in soliciting fees was an abuse, and the dukes at­ tempted to regulate and fix the size of incerti by publishing tariffs of what could be collected legally. There were significant regulations of this matter in 1563, 1565, 1614, 1621, 1626, 1633, 1638, and 1680 for the city, and in 1615 and 1627 for justices sent out to provincial towns and their staff of notai and assistants, who presented a particular prob­ lem. IO The payments were supposed to be made to the casse of the mag­ istracies rather than be collected directly by functionaries, and they were supposed to be distributed in fixed proportions to the officials in­ volved. The sums collected undoubtedly depended much on circum­ stance, which makes assessment of salaries on the basis of the Tratte lists probably less in many cases than what officeholders actually re­ ceived. Some examples from the end of the seventeenth century help to show the proportions that different components of salaries might as­ sume, as well as the complex means of payment. In 1695 the salary of the Provveditore of the Decima was reported as "fixed provvisione 100 from the Monte; see ASF, Carte Gianni, F 54, ins. 20, "Diario di ricordi mensuah per la zienda di casa Gianni." Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, v, 7-9 (1563), 288-327 (1565); xv, 12-14 (!614), 2123 (1615), 200-204 (1621), 384-86 (1626); xvi, 10-23 (1627), 171 (1633), 282-84 (1638); xix, 195-98 (1680).

CAREERS AND SALARIES

Scudi yearly, and participation in certain fees [riscossioni], so that in sum the revenue of this office is estimated at 250 Scudi a year."11 This is a relatively straightforward case, in which the anticipated incerti were half again the size of the official provvisione. But sometimes only the total salary was reported, although different components were involved, as for the Auditore of the Magistrato Supremo: "The revenue of this of­ fice can vary considerably . . . when occupied by a diligent subject [uomo da bene], it may reach about 400 Scudi a year."12 Sometimes parts of the official salaries were preempted for other purposes, leading to all kinds of curious arrangements. From the time of Cosimo I, Commende in the Order of St. Stephen were funded from the intake of dif­ ferent magistracies, and officeholders were sometimes obliged to maintain assistants. For the Provveditore of the Nove the list from 1695 reports: "The revenue of this office appears to be 700 Scudi a year, but with the pay of a cashier, an assistant, and the Commenda Nobile, which amounts to 150 Scudi a year, there remains to the Provveditore little more than 200 Scudi annually. However, he also has 100 Scudi paid to him by the Soprassindaco."13 For the Giudice of the Mercanzia, an office of decreasing importance in the seventeenth century, "the emoluments used to consist of a provvisione of 200 Scudi from the cassa of the Mercanzia, 150 Scudi from the cassa of the Nove, and participa­ tion in fees [incerti] valued at about 20 Scudi a month. As well, the Giudice enjoyed a good lodging over the Mercanzia with the right to rent it out and another lodging in the Ruota. Now he has only the emolumenti incerti, 20 Scudi a month; and the lodging in the Ruota, the prov­ visione of 200 Scudi, and the 150 Scudi from the cassa of the Nove [have passed to pay other expenses, but he might also have] the lodging over the Mercanzia after the death of Auditore Orceoli, the previous Giudice."14 Thus in some cases the balance between provvisioni and incerti is dif­ ficult to establish, but the confusing system of payment by which of­ ficeholders

might draw then provvisioni from the cassa of more than one

magistracy, rather than from the Depositeria Generale or from the Monte Comune, makes it difficult to improve on the estimates in the " ASF, Misc. Med., F 413, 293. 12 Ibid., 257. ,J Ibid., 665. ,4 Ibid., 506.

PART IV

Tratte lists. By totaling up the components involved, an estimate of to­ tal salary can be obtained for three-quarters of the offices in 15 51, for two-thirds in 1604, and for 80 to 90 percent in 1695 and 1736. The re­ sults are summarized in Table A. 3 of Appendix A, which indicate there was: (1) a gradual increase in size of both provvisioni and total salaries during the seventeenth century after the late sixteenth-century price rise; (2) a differential change in level of salaries between magistrates and permanent functionaries; and (3) a relatively unchanging, or slightly decreasing, proportion of total salary that was represented by incerti, at least for offices where incerti are known. Comparison from list to list requires an adjustment of monetary units, since the Florentine Scudo of seven Lire fell in real value through inflation. To account for this, average salaries have been expressed in face values of the Scudo, but also in the buying power in a basic commodity of consumption: grain. Tuscan grain prices followed the inflation of the sixteenth century fairly closely, reaching particularly high levels in the period 1590-1660, and then falling to a lower level until the mid-eighteenth century.15 But even when adjusted for inflation, it is clear that there was a rise in salaries during the seventeenth century. The change between 1604 and 1695 is striking. Mean total salaries in 1736 were nearly double those of 1551, although when the Scudo is adjusted for its relative buy­ ing power in grain the increase falls to about 150 percent. The improve­ ment affected different types of offices in different ways. The perma­ nent offices were favored most, while salaries in the rotating magistracies remained nearly fixed through the price rise and never re­ covered their mid-sixteenth-century value. The change was more in higher-ranking offices than in lower-ranking ones. Salaries of provveditori, cancellieri, and camarlinghi experienced about a 260 percent in­ crease; the salaries of ragionieri increased a bit less, 240 percent, while the salaries of scrivani only doubled. Officeholding was, on an average and in terms of the real purchasing power of the Scudo, nearly twice as lucrative at the end of the seventeenth century as it had been under Cosimo I in 15 51. It is difficult to say precisely how the increase in level of provvisioni l! These relative values were established on the basis of Malamma, "Aspetti di mercato e prezzi del grano," 321-27. Prices were averaged for ten years centering on the date in question. On values in gold, see Chapter 11.

CAREERS AND SALARIES

was accomplished, since there was little ducal legislation on this subject. The increase may have taken place when individual bureaus were reformed or reorganized, as appears in some cases, or it happened on an ad hoc basis when new men were appointed to replace previous incumbents in office.16 The dukes paid pensions to some individual officeholders over and above their regularprovvisioni, and these payments may in some cases have become part of permanent salary increases for certain offices.I7 But it is clear that the change resulted from an increase in the size of provvisioni, the official salaries, rather than from an increase in the size of incerti, the supplementary fees. Incerti are reported for a relatively small number of offices in 1551 and 1604; fees increased in size slightly at the end of the sixteenth century in the period of the price rise, but then decreased again in the seventeenth century. Overall, the size of incerti and the proportion of total salaries they represented appears to have remained about constant, a tribute to the ducal legislation that attempted to regulate this matter. Abuses in the seventeenth century also involved other types of gain from officeholding, and it is clear that through pluralism especially the patricians gained progressively more from officeholding. It is possible to make a tentative salary scale showing how nobles ranked with others in relative level of remuneration by comparing mean salaries of offices held by different groups that were above or below the grand mean for each year through the relatively simple statistical procedure of a Multiple Classification Table (Table 10.2). One can thus assess the effects on salary of social status (nobles and non-nobles), training (lawyers and non-lawyers), and type of office, and the effect of each factor on the others. A coefficient (the eta or beta coefficients) helps to establish the relative significance of these factors in explaining the overall salary range, with lower coefficients indicating smaller significance and higher coefficients indicating larger significance. So that direct comparisons of deviations from the grand mean from year to year can be made, the means for 1604, 1695, a n d 1736 have been 10

Note for instance the reforms of magistracies where new levels of provvisioni were specified: the Gabella dei Contratti in 1566 (Cantini, Vi, 21-114); the Fisco in 1570 (Cantmi, VIi, 286-308); the Monte di Pieta in 1573 (Cantini, vin, 99-110); the Mercanzia in 1585 (Cantini, xi, 132-346); the Capitam di Partem 1588 (Cantini, xn, 294-95); and the Ruota in 1626 (Cantini, xv, 384-86). 17 On this, see the discussion in Chapter 11.

195

150

Others

152

PI

19

Others

.09

(.18)

(.21)

I 10

Eta-Beta

G R A N D MEANS

(.46)

-23.2

63.7

(.01)

0.5

-0.7

D-3

TABLE

82 4

(079)

-21.8

57 0

4942

-7-9

(34)

- 1 6 3

657

(.11)

92

— 12 8

D—1

2-5

D-2

(100.1)*

(.35)

- 1 6 7

67 3

(.02)

-1.8

1604

(37)

-17.8

71-7

(.05)

4-3

-5-9

D-3

51

18

So

19

• 13

(-19)

04

12

I 14

(.20)

-.05

-

(25)

-.06

.07

(.24)

-.06

15

Analysts of Mean Number of Offices Held (A-D

170

25

6

86

230

57

167

120

N

10.2 MULTIPLE

101.9

77

16

54

1.17

(•13)

.11

-

(17)

04

.18

(.18)

-.08

9

90

24

79

35

337

35

9 I

D-2

1.24

(-05)

— .01

(-07)

— .02

.08

(21)

(20)

05

-.09

20

(1587)*

(.32)

-12.7

49-7

(10)

-6-4

•736

-.08

.19

82.4

(.70)

-6.7

120.2

282.0

-44-4

-44 3

(.31)

-12.3

48.0

(.07)

-8.8

6-5

D —I

(31)

— 12.2

48.0

(.12)

-7-9

11.3

D-3

Icvcl officcs

KEY KM = Rotating magistrates, PM = Permanent magistrates (other than in law courts), PMLC — Permanent magistrates in law courts, PU = Permanent upper-level officcs; PI = Permanent lntcrmcdiary-

* Unstandardizcd means

14

(14)

06

08

-.03

-

Sample of Officeholders)

82.4

(.70)

-7.0

271 0

39

384

98

283

25

(.37)

-15.2

55-8

(09)

-6.0

199

N

76

(166.5)*

(.37)

- 1 5 5

57.0

(07)

9.2

D-3

— 26.7

11

264

7-3

D-2

-4.8

1695

ANALYSIS

-43.6

(36)

-15.1

55-2

(.02)

— 1.1

1-7

D-L

28

30

73

319

87

245

N

1 5 5 1 - 1 7 3 6

CLASSIFICATION

A N D T Y P E OF O F F I C E ,

IN THE B U R E A U C R A C Y :

OF S T A T U S , T R A I N I N G

SALARIES

NOTES Grand means and deviations for 1604, 1695, and 1736 arc standarized to the grand mean of 1551 for all officcs

Others

-•OS

is

25

Lawyers

10

(.16)

.02

(15)

— .02

06

(.39)

-.06

Training

Eta-Beta

21

Nobles

53-6

-19-5

-.05

82 4

G R A N D MEANS

Status

(.83)

Eta-Beta

9

69.2

-21

417.6

PMI C

6

-3-6

(37)

10

77

51.8

-18.9

(.03)

— 22

(.12)

8.5

D-2

3-3

M.S1

-12.6

D-L

PU

PM

RM

Type of Office

Eta-Beta

67

184

Lawyers

Others

Training

Eta-Beta

101

Nobles

Status

N

MEAN

161

CAREERS AND SALARIES

standardized to the grand mean for 1551, and the different types of no­ bles have been grouped together into a single category. Column D-I shows the deviation from the mean and eta-beta coefficients associated with status, training, and type of office when these factors are consid­ ered separately. Column D-2 shows the deviation from the mean when the first two factors are adjusted for the other, that is, the difference in mean salary between nobles and non-nobles when the effect of legal training is held constant, and the difference between lawyers and nonlawyers when social status is held constant. Column D-3 shows the mean difference of salary between nobles and non-nobles and between lawyers and non-lawyers when each factor is adjusted for the other and when the variation resulting from type of office is also taken into ac­ count. In general, the patricians had an increasing advantage in salaries that became more pronounced with the advancement of pluralism in the seventeenth century. In 1551, when the effect of social status is consid­ ered alone, there was a difference of 21 Scudi between the mean salaries of offices held by nobles and non-nobles, with nobles generally occu­ pying lower-paying offices. When the effect of legal training of nobles and non-nobles is held constant, however, the difference reduces itself to about 5 Scudi, with nobles now being paid more than lawyers, in­ dicating that in 1551 legal training was a factor of importance in keep­ ing the salaries of non-nobles relatively high. But when the type of of­ fice is also added to the equation, the difference between nobles and non-nobles resolves itself as being very small, with nobles slightly less well paid than non-nobles. This was because non-noble lawyers in the law courts tended to be employed in very high-paying offices, while nobles tended to have low-paying places in the rotating magistracies. However, in all three instances the mean difference in salary between nobles and non-nobles was quite small. In 1551 patrician status had lit­ tle to do with how much officeholders were paid. Training was impor­ tant, however, in that the offices occupied by lawyers, noble or nonnoble, tended to be more highly paid. Type of office was an important determinant of the size of salaries, and over the four years the salaries of magistrate fell as the salaries of mi­ nistri rose. Permanent magistrates have been divided into two groups: justices of the law courts (Auditori of the Ruota and Consulta), and other permanent magistrates (Protettori of the Monti, Abbondanza,

PART IV

and Sanita). While rotating magistrates were poorly paid in all four years, and the second group of permanent magistrates was paid even less, justices of the law courts were the best-paid men in the bureaucracy. Their mean salaries were five to seven times the mean of upperlevel officeholders generally at the beginning of the period, and later their salaries continued to be quite high. The lowest-paid functionaries were intermediary-level officeholders in 1551 and 1604, but in 1695 and 1736 salaries in these offices had also improved so that they were above the two lowest-paid groups of magistrates. Legal training was the second most important factor in determining salary level, and this was little affected by the type of office held or the social standing of the lawyer. Social status was of little importance in determining salary level in the sixteenth century, but it became more important in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Patrician officeholders were paid less than non-nobles in 1551 and 1604, but more than non-nobles in 1695 and 1736. The improvement in their situation resulted partly from the fact that in 1695 and 1736 the nobles had moved into higher-ranking permanent offices. But whereas legal training and the type of office held tended to reduce the difference between nobles and non-nobles in the earlier years, patrician status alone produced a slight advantage in 1695 and 1736. Pluralism, however, bid up the salaries of patricians more than this assessment of offices alone indicates. The Multiple Classification Table is based on offices rather than officeholders, and thus does not show the total salary received from all offices held concurrently. The effect of pluralism is difficult to assess because one cannot always ascertain whether men with similar names were in fact the same officeholders. A careful check was made of the number of offices held by men with surnames beginning with the letters A-D, which is summarized in the lower panel of Table 10.2. The salaries for all offices that may have been held concurrently are not known in every case, but total salary clearly increased with the number of offices held. Two groups in the bureaucracy were likely to hold more than one office: lawyers and patricians. In 1551, nobles were less likely to hold more offices than lawyers, but in the later years nobles gained in pluralism over lawyers. Even with the higher salaries of the late seventeenth century, it may have taken patricians several offices to reach what they held to be a reasonable level 198

CAREERS AND SALARIES

of remuneration.18 Pluralism, rather than incerti, was thus probably the abuse that most commonly permitted patricians to increase their in­ come from office, a result of Court patronage and the lax system of ap­ pointment and advancement. The abuses of patrimonialism in the ducal system went beyond incerti and plural officeholding. There was a long current of incidents—fifty or more known cases between 1630 and 1760—of embezzlement from the Monti of the ducal debt, from the coffers of the paymaster of the Bande, from the Dogana, the Gabelles, the provincial administration, and above all from the Abbondanza, which controlled the grain trade and provisioning of Florence. Many of these cases are revealed through records of the Soprassindaci, the board of auditors associated with the Monte Comune, which had the task of investigating fraud in the administration of public funds. Patricians in need of cash who thought themselves safe in the shadow of the Court were likely to be involved in such dealings. "Theft is everywhere," wrote Count Richecourt, the agent for Francis Stephen of Lorraine in 1737, "in the military and civil administration, in the finances; there is no tribunal, no receivership, where the Prince is not deceived and the people vexed.19 But the patricians were beneficiaries not only of "abuses" in the ducal Pluralists in 1736 were men like Cavaliere Braccio Alberti, who held the offices of Senator, for which he received no pay; Protettore of the Abbondanza, for which he re­ ceived a mere 13 Scudi yearly; was a member ex officio member of the Pratica Segreta, for which he was not paid, and a magistrate in the Nove, for which he was paid 60 Scudi for a six-month term. His total yearly salary was a modest 73 Scudi for four offices. Vincenzo Antinori was also an unpaid senator. He became Provveditore of the Arte del Cambio in 1726 (150 Scudi); a Protettore of the Monte del Sale in 1732 (60 Scudi); and finally Provveditore of the Monte del Sale in 1736, which was a substantial office with a salary of 600 Scudi. His total yearly salary from five offices was 810 Scudi. Senator Ferrante Capponi was made one of the Protettori of the Monte Redimibile in 1721 (60 Scudi) and Soprintendente of the Decima in 1736 (150 Scudi), a total of 210 Scudi per year. Because lawyers were better paid from the beginning, it was probably easier for them to reach this level. Giacopo Conti, a pluralist lawyer in 1736, had been made Assessore of the Monte di Pieta in 1714 (150 Scudi), and had held advisory positions as Assessore of the Decima since 1717 (13 Scudi) and as Assessore of the Dogana since 1736 (18 Scudi); but he was also an Auditore of the Ruota (700 Scudi), which gave him a total of 881 Scudi yearly— an income that was higher than that of most patricians. The Multiple Classification Analysis was carried out with SPSS using standard op­ tions. 19 Waquet, De la corruption, 26, 54-59.

PART IV

system. The patrimonialism of administration extended beyond the habits of training, appointment, careers, and salaries. As officeholders they were also the formulators and administrators of policy at a mo­ ment when Florentine society was undergoing a difficult transition, and the social bias of the bureaucracy in favor of the elite contributed to the general bias of ducal policy in support of the urban interests of Tus­ can society. For a fuller picture of the effect of patrician officeholding, we must go beyond the abuses of officialdom to the connection be­ tween patrician interests and ducal policy. The Medici and patricians of the bureaucracy evolved an administrative strategy designed to protect the well-being of Florence in the seventeenth-century economic down­ turn. And the relative success of this policy determined the larger ben­ efits of officeholding for the elite.

PART V

PATRICIAN WEALTH AND DUCAL POLICY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

I I

THE CHANGING FORTUNES OF THE PATRICIANS

It is significant that the movement of patricians into the permanent of­ fices coincided with the general economic crisis of the seventeenth cen­ tury that contributed to what has sometimes been called the economic "decline of Italy." This was partly because the dukes, in the distribution of offices, assisted patrician houses in a period of adversity. But the re­ lationship of the patricians to the Medici bureaucracy was not merely passive. They had deeply established interests in traditional industries and commerce of Florence, and despite an increasing reinvestment of wealth in landed estates, they preserved a mercantilistic view of policy, which favored protection of the interests of the capital over the remain­ der of the state. With the shift of investments from commerce to land, and the patricians' transformation into titled nobles of the Court, it is sometimes argued that there then occurred a type of "refeudalization" of Tuscan society and a weakening of the economic position of the cap­ ital.1 Indeed, there was a significant transformation of the Florentine economy in this period. But in the seventeenth century the dukes and the elite also adopted a strongly protective mercantilist policy for Flor­ entine interests, and the effect of increased bureaucratic control was to protect the urban economy through the seventeenth-century crisis, de­ spite the continuing increase in importance of rural over urban interests in the regional economy. In this way the patrimonialism of the ducal system furthered the survival of urban interests and was an underlying determinant in local politics. The Involution of the Business Community

The economic crisis of Italy in the seventeenth century enclosed Flor­ ence in a web of interactions of Mediterranean and European dimen1

For a discussion, see Anzilotti, "II tramonto dello stato cittadino," 188-202; Diaz, Il

granducato di Toscana, 327-422.

PART V

sions.2 It began with an industrial upturn and recovery in the 1550s to 1560s, after the wars of the first decades of the century. But it was a re­ covery with fundamental weaknesses and perils, particularly in the spe­ cialization of production in high-quality textiles that were beginning to be produced more successfully elsewhere. Then, with the sixteenthcentury expansion of Atlantic trade, centers of banking and commerce began to shift to the Atlantic, and there was an invasion of the Medi­ terranean by English and Dutch sailing ships, so that the commercial as well as the industrial bases of prosperity of Italian cities were threat­ ened. To the urban crisis was added a rural one. A steady increase in agricultural prices in the last decades of the sixteenth century promoted a flight of business capital into land speculation, but this was insuffi­ cient to stimulate more intensive agricultural production or to counter a deficit in the supply of grain in the last years of the century. Further difficulties in the countryside emerged during the Thirty Years' War, when food prices fell and remained low, thus further depressing con­ ditions of agriculture. In the 1550s the population of Florence began to grow, recovering from the ravages of the first decades of the century. A spurt of growth in the wool industry contributed to the upswing. According to a rough census of 1551, nearly half of heads of households with listed occupa­ tions were employed in textiles. In 1561, 215 botteghe were active in the wool industry, 107 in silk, and 53 in linen and hemp.3 But the uncer­ tainty of the economic upturn was already clear in the 1570s to 1590s, decades of rising prices and wars with the Turks, in Flanders, and in France. War produced financial uncertainty in Italy. In 1574 the Capponi bank of Florence failed, following bankruptcy of Italian mer­ chants at Lyon. In 1580 the bankers Strozzo Strozzi and Salvatore Quaratesi failed at Florence and Pisa for 130,000 and 90,000 Scudi, re­ spectively. A new wave of bankruptcies hit in 1587-89, and then came the huge failure of the De Ricci and Ubaldini banks of Florence and 3 On this subject, see, among other works, Cipolla, "The Decline of Italy," 178-87; Braudel, La Miditenanie et Ie Monde miditerraneen, 1, 326-577,11, 50-90; Braudel and Ro­ mano, Navires et marchandises; Romano, "Tra xvi e XVII secolo," 480-531; Romano, "La

storia economica"; Sella, "Rise and Fall of the Venetian Wool Industry." Most recently, for Tuscany, see Malanima, La decadenza di un'economia cittadina. ' Battara, La popolazione di Firenze, 67; P. Battara, "Botteghe e pigioni nella Firenze del '500," 9.

CHANGING FORTUNES

Rome in 1594. In 1597 further reversals necessitated the intervention of the ducal treasury with a guarantee of 500,000 Scudi to preserve credit.4 To this underlying uncertainty was added a decrease in demand for Florentine textiles, which had a differential effect on the wool and silk industries. Production of wool began to decrease throughout northern Italy in the last decades of the century. At Florence in 1589-1600 the average number of wool cloths produced yearly had fallen to 13, 500, less than half of the peak of production in the early 1560s. Output fur­ ther decreased to an average of 9,200 pieces in 1617-21, 7,650 in 162226, and 5,900 in 1631 -35. From 166 botteghe in the Arte della Lana in 1561, the number fell to 46 in 1636. Production in the silk industry de­ clined less seriously than wool. In 1662-63, 4° shops were engaged in the Arte della Lana, and 63 in the Arte della Seta. The silk industry con­ tinued with moderate success into the eighteenth century, but the Flor­ entine wool industry never recovered. The effects of the seventeenth-century depression were felt at all so­ cial levels in city and countryside alike: from the poor, whose immi­ gration into Florence helped to restore the city's population after the plague of 1630, but who lived on the charity of churches, pious foun­ dations, and hospitals, to the rich, who were able to preserve their for­ tunes but not increase them by much. But it was the middling class of traders and artisans whose prospects were most bleak, and in the tight situation of the seventeenth century they became onlookers and de­ pendents of the patrician elite, whose resources were inherited from pe­ riods of greater prosperity. Two sources left by the bureaucracy help to plot the fortunes of the patricians through the seventeenth-century cri­ sis: the registers of investors in business firms kept by the Mercanzia, which make it possible to follow the trend of business investments; and the thick registers in which clerks of the Decima recorded purchases and sales of land and buildings for the land tax, which show the patri­ cians' increasing dependence on landed wealth. The Mercanzia registered limited-liability business companies, or Accomandite, which since the fifteenth century had offered legal pro­ tection to investors in Florentine business firms. The advantage of this type of investment was that in the case of business failure, investors 4

As reported in the Avvisi of Rome; see Delumeau, Vie economique et sociale de Rome,

11, 894-937.

PART V

were liable only to the extent of their registered capital. Companies might have as many as five to eight investors, most of them silent part­ ners, and the firms generally continued for terms of three years. But the increasingly sedentary nature of the business community in the seven­ teenth century meant that companies were often reregistered for dec­ ades.5 To be sure, not all business undertakings were registered as Accomandite. Most small businesses were family firms or simple un­ registered partnerships. But registration of investments in Acco­ mandite became increasingly common for the patricians in the uncer­ tain situation of the late sixteenth century, and this type of investment continued to be common through the seventeenth century. Table 11.1 shows the distribution of investment in firms that were in operation in four successive periods: 1602-1604, 1648-50, 1693—95, and 1734-36. The volume of investment in Accomandite was as yet too small to provide a satisfactory picture of investments in 1551. The to­ tals are mean capital currently in operation, which, because firms con­ tinued for a period of years, give a better global assessment than simply a total of the investments first registered in these years. Some firms were in operation for only one or two years during the three-year pe­ riods, and thus the numbers of firms in operation are expressed as an average, with a decimal. As in the case of salaries, an adjustment was made to allow for inflation to permit comparisons of total investments from year to year. In this case, the value of the Florentine Scudo in gold for foreign exchange was considered important, especially since it was necessary to calculate exchanges between the Scudo and currencies from outside of Florence, where many investments were recorded.6 5

On the registration of Accomandite, seeCarmona, "Aspects du capitalisme Toscan,"

81-108; and Litchfield, "Les investissements en commerce," 685-721. To determine the running totals of investment in actual operation one must have both a beginning and an end date for each investment. The end dates could be supplied for about 70 percent of firms from later renewals of the firm or from the recording of a disdetta in the registers of the Mercanzia. The remainder were assumed to have ended after the standard three-year duration of the contract. This method is preferable to the one of Malanima (La decadenza di uti economia cittadina, 138-41) since it takes into account the varying duration of Acco­ mandite, a matter of particular importance for larger firms. 6

Foreign values were converted into Florentine Scudi of 7 Lire using tables of ex­

change at the fairs of Besangon provided m Da Silva, Banque el credit, 1, 289-372, and vol.

Ii for the years used here. The gold value of the Scudo in foreign exchange was taken to be the value of the Ecu de Marc which was set by the Republic of Genova. The Scudo was

CHANGING FORTUNES

By studying the first group of columns, for 1602-1604, one can see the pattern of patrician investment in the last years of fading prosperity of the sixteenth-century economic upswing. Investors are identified in four groups: older patricians from the Republic, new patricians and nobles, investors outside of the elite, and certain others, mostly business firms making investments in other firms, which one might think of as institutional investors. Judging from the types and locations of firms, Florentine businesses still had their old diversity and geographical dispersion. More than a third operated outside of Tuscany, at Venice, Rome, Naples, Amsterdam, Spain, Germany, and the Levant. The older patricians as a group subscribed more than half of the capital, and among the largest investors one can still recognize great houses of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century business world. Among those with investments of 10,000 Scudi or more were the Capponi, with a total of 63,000 Scudi in nine firms, merchant companies in Rome, Naples, and Hamburg, and a large wool firm in Florence; the Guicciardini, with 31,900 Scudi in the Guicciardini bank in Rome and 9,500 Scudi in a company of Battilori in Florence; the Corsini, with 38,000 Scudi in merchant companies at Naples, Palermo, and Messina; and the Bartoli, with 13,000 Scudi in two silk shops in Florence and 20,000 Scudi in a merchant company at Seville in Spain. Other names follow: Martelli, Guadagni, Strozzi, Bartolommei, Franceschi, Riccardi, Viviani, Doni, Serragli, Mazzinghi, Ugolini. The patricians' interests were mostly in large-scale foreign commerce, a type of activity in which they had long been involved. Only a few textile and silk firms were registered as Accomandite in 1602-1604, where the interests of the patricians were divided about equally between wool and silk. Investment in merchant companies operating in Florence and in other industries of the city was subscribed mostly by small non-noble investors below the level of the elite. From the remaining columns in Table 11.1 one can see the change in patrician investment into the early eighteenth century. Adjustment to the new situation of production and trade had three clearly discernible features: (1) a continuity of investment by the older elite; (2) a large reactually quite stable m the seventeenth century. In the 1640s its value in Ecus de Marc of 1600-10 had dropped to 81.5 percent, in the 1690s to 78.6 percent, and at the end of the period to 76.7 percent. 207

.20

5-3

6-3

4.0

2-3

16.0

41.6

Silk

Other Textiles

Battilori

Quoiai

Other

14.9

TOTAL

1.0

8.6

14-3

Venice

Rome

Naples •34

.17

.04

.09

10.3

Foreign

.07

4.6

Other towns

.02

*

.04

.01

.04

Livorno

Other Tuscany

TOTAL

.04

5-6

.04

2.0

Wool

.03

CAP

Large comm.

Florence

N

TABLE 11.1

•73

.42 .08

.06

.24

.15

.07

.02

.02

.01

•03

•03

.01

.04

NPN

.21

.35

•49

.36

48

•37

•73

•74

.14

OP

1602--04

.11

.53

.85

•43

.40

.55

•43

.39

•3D

.60

.26

.21

.86

O

•05 .08

.26

.32

.08

.06

.15

.19

.01

OF

(in percentages)

INVESTMENT IN A C C O M A N D I T E AT FLORENCE,

1-3

.6

12.9

2-3

10.6

47-3

18.3

1.0

3.6

1.0

14.6

6.6

2.0

N

1604-1736

•03

.08

.21

.08

.12

.67

•07

*

•03

*

-39

.10

.09

CAP

.08

.10

36

.71

.12

•57

.11

.28

.67

.28

•93

OP

.73

10

.12

.03

.05

.28

01

NPN

1648-50

.90

.51

.29

.66

•23

•77

.69

.15

.28

.06

0

•19

.13

.22

.10

.13

.16

OF

2.3

Germany

7.0

Silk

.14

.09 •50

14-3

35.0

Other

TOTAL

.02 .01

1-3

1-3

Battilori

*

.22

.02

Quoiai

1.0

1-3

Other Textiles

8.6

Large comm.

CAP

1.00

88.6

N

.71

.02

.08

31-7

Wool

Florence

CAPIT AL 1

G R A N D TOTAL

TOTAL

•3

1.6

Holland

Levant

3-6

Spain

Portugal

.56

.10

.16

•74

.46

.61

OP

.07

.07

.41

.07

.12

.03

NPN

.16

.29

•90

16

.05

.07

.23

0

.21

.47

•27

• 14

•35

.13

OF

50-3

19.6

3-6

2.6

•3

10.3

2-3

14.0

N

63.6

.07

•57

.19

.01

*

•17

.02

.18

CAP

1.00

.12 .56

.20

•54

. 17 .54

.35

.09

•37

.71

.71

OP

•09

.18

•13

.12

.11

.04

.23

.21

.04

NPN

1734-- 3 6

2.9

.05

1.00

1 6 9 3 - "95

•33

.36

1.00

48

.05

.01

827,594

.05

.06

•95

1.0

789,336

.55

.60

.52

•92

.08

-32

•34

.40

•87

•39

.02

.25

0

.25

.58

.01

.14

.01

.06

OF

.10

•05

19-3

1 0

5-3

Portugal

Spain

-04

.03

.04

NPN

954.371

•55

1.00

Mercanzia r 1 0 8 3 2 , 1 0 8 4 2 , 1 0 8 4 4 , 10848, 1 0 8 5 6 .

63.6

.69

.77

.83

•35

•55

.24

.16

02

•03

.40

.56

•39

OP

.23

.11

08

47

.29

.48

.17

.51

0

11.1

.18

.18

.19

.09

.18

.16

.12

•27

.10

OF

68.0

6.3

2.0

3-3

1.0

11-3

3-3

8.0

N

•43

1.00

09

.06

.19

.03

.01

.04

NPN

913,220

.20

.16

.38

.38

.83

.25

OP

•23

.13

.07

.03

.21

.05

.16

CAP

1734-36

.47

.61

.84

.43

1.00

.56

.13

.67

0

.01

*

.02

.04

.03

.04

OF

01

* In current Scudi

* Less than

In Scudi o f 1604 the total for 1 6 4 8 - 5 0 w a s 6 7 4 , 4 8 9 Scudi; f o r 1 6 9 3 — 9 5 , 7 5 I > 8 7 6 Scudi, and f o r 1 7 3 4 - 3 6 , 7 0 0 , 4 3 9 Scudi.

firms ( r o w percentages o f total capital in each category)

K E Y : N = N u m b e r o f firms, CAP = Percent total capital (column percent), OP = O l d e r patricians; NPN = N e w patricians and nobles, O = Others; OF = O t h e r

SOURCE. ASF,

CAPITAL^

GRAND TOTAL

TOTAL

Levant

Germany

9.2

13

Naples

Holland

1.6

Rome

Venice

Foreign •°3

.26

9-3

TOTAL

.02

10.0

Oth. towns

•23

< AP

Livorno

Other Tuscany

N

1693-95

TABLE

CHANGING FORTUNES

location of capital from firms operating abroad to firms operating in Florence; and (3) an involution of the business community, producing a predominance of large patrician investors in a few highly capitalized firms. The total face value of investment increased somewhat in the three later years, an indication that a larger proportion of firms became registered as Accomandite, but remained relatively constant when measured in Scudi of 1604.7 Although patrician houses entered and left the investing group, their proportion of investment was also fairly con­ stant at some 55-56 percent of the total. The patricians were gradually disinvesting from business, and the total of capital available in the city was probably diminishing. There were thirty-six older houses with in­ vestments in 1604, thirty-five in 1650, thirty-two in 1695, and fortyone in 1736, but among the fifteen houses with 10,000 Scudi or more in 1604, eight did not appear in any of the later years. Filippo Guicciardini seems to have been the last of his house to have had important in­ terests in banking in Rome, or have had any other significant involve­ ment in business. The Bartoli, Guadagni, Guicciardini, Bartolommei, Doni, Mazzinghi, Serragli and Ugolini were large investors in 1604 who appear in none of the later years. Of these the Serragli, became extinct in the seventeenth century, but the others continued into the eighteenth century, some with quite large landed estates. But clearly there was a continuity of investment by patricians in seventeenth-century Florence. Judging from the Mercanzia, about a fifth of surviving houses were involved in any one year. Rather than abandoning their mercantile involvement in the early years of the century, the patricians made a massive relocation of investment from foreign trade to busi­ nesses operating at home. There was a small recovery of foreign in­ vestment in 1693-95 and in 1734-36, chiefly in firms operating in Spain and Portugal, but after the 1650s the bulk of patrician investment was in Florence itself. The return of patrician capital raises the question of where invest7

The increase in total capital in Accomandite indicates more frequent use of this type

of contract rather than an increase in global capital, in Florence, as can be seen from the account books of the Riccardi, who were major investors. No investments in Acco­ mandite can be traced to the Riccardi in 1602-1604, while their business capital in 16001604 was 110,440 Scudi. In 1650 their registered investments were 30,000 Scudi, while their total business capital m 1645-49 was 96,740 Scudi. But in later years almost all of the Riccardi business capital was registered; see Malamma, I Riccardi, 243.

PART V

ments could be placed profitably in the changing economic situation. There was flight of capital from foreign investment, but the problems of the Florentine textile industry and the fall in production of wool hardly created good prospects at home. The late sixteenth-century in­ flation, the lag of wages behind prices, and then the successive crises of subsistence in years of high grain prices undoubtedly decreased the buying power of consumers and made it difficult to envision new areas of enterprise that might aim at new urban markets. Still, inflation may also have created a need for new investment locally as the resources of small independent producers in textiles and small entrepreneurs in local commerce were consumed through business failures. The returning capital of the patricians permitted the elite to extend its economic con­ trol and network of clientage downward into the nether reaches of the business world, which had been more in the hands of small independ­ ent entrepreneurs in the better years of the late sixteenth century. One cannot follow this process in detail through the Mercanzia, because small investors were less likely to register businesses as Accomandite. But it is clear that the movement of in vestment from foreign trade back to the city took place in a period when the number of enterprises was not growing, and this produced an involution of the business world around a few wealthy patrician investors in a few lavishly capitalized firms. Involution is a term sometimes applied by anthropologists to the sit­ uation of a cultural pattern that does not develop into a new form but continues to grow through internal elaboration of its traditional struc­ ture.8 The term can be applied to the Florentine business community in the seventeenth century. Returning patrician capital was absorbed into traditional sectors of the economy: the textile industry, local commer­ cial ventures, and the city's small artisan trades and retail shops. The biggest new placements were in the silk industry, where the number of firms registered increased from 5-6 in 1602-1604 to 14-15 in 1648-50, and the capital subscribed by patricians increased more than sevenfold.9 Silk was an area of innovation in the attempt to adapt to the changing market for textiles. The largest patrician investors in silk in 1650 were 8

Geertz, Agricultural Involution, 80-82.

9

On patrician investment in Silk, see also Goodman, "Financing Pre-Modem Euro­

pean Industry," 415-35.

CHANGING FORTUNES

the Franceschi, Riccardi, Pucci, Corsi, and Rinuccini. The seven silk firms in 1695 included a huge company of the Frescobaldi and Riccardi, which had capital of 70,000 Scudi that was renewed continually until its final dissolution in 1731. With the disappearance of this single firm, patrician investment dropped from 74 to 37 percent of the total in silk, but in 1736 there were still ten or eleven silk firms with investments held by the elite. Merchant companies operating through the port of Livorno were another area of local investment. Two such firms oper­ ated at Florence in 1602-1604, with four or five at Livorno, two at Flor­ ence, and ten or eleven at Livorno in 1648-50; eight or nine firms at Florence and ten at Livorno in 1693-95; and fourteen firms at Florence and eight at Livorno in 1734-36. These were merchant banks and im­ port-export firms connected with smaller ventures of ship furnishers, wholesalers, warehousemen, drygoods dealers, and negozi di spezieria, drogheria, and battilori, many of which operated with capital from the elite. To be sure, not all foreign investment of the years 1602-1604 was re­ located successfully at home. Undoubtedly much capital was diverted to building, furnishings, dowries, and living expenses. Patricians also made large investments in Monte shares of the ducal debt. In 1601— 1604 the Riccardi had a mere 1,270 Scudi in Luoghi di Monte at Flor­ ence and elsewhere, but this increased to 51,115 Scudi in 1645-49, 55.859 Scudi in 1690-94, and 127,018 Scudi in 1730-34, when Monte shares finally overtook the value of business investments in the Riccardi fortune.10 Merchant elites often reach a point at which conspicuous ex­ penditure becomes more attractive than accumulation of wealth and at­ tention to business detail. This is not harmful to economic develop­ ment so long as a new group of entrepreneurs rises up from the lower ranks to replace them, which was difficult to accomplish in seventeenth-century Florence. The luxury of the rich evoked comment from an ambassador from Lucca, who wrote in 1600: "... under the Principate [the nobility] has left its old parsimony in private life, and given itself over to courtly living, and thus the larger part . . . disdaining commerce, belts on the sword, and those who persist, reputing [trade] unworthy of their hands, make use of the services of underlings (ministri), so that their profits are much diminished, and their expense is in10

Malanima, 1 Riccardi, 247.

PART V

creased disproportionately, these men living with such splendor at home and abroad [in the city] as to be no less than titled lords. . . ."n Patricians participated less and less in the active administration of busi­ nesses. The Mercanzia registers distinguish managing partners without investment, managing partners with investment, and silent investing partners. In 1604 patricians contributed more than a quarter of the managing partners of firms, but their active participation fell to 12 per­ cent of investors in 1650, rose to 20 percent in 1695, and then fell again to 8 percent in 1736. An increase in the capitalization of firms was another consequence of the difficult economic environment and produced an oligarchic situa­ tion in which a few patrician houses dominated the business world for more than a century. It is surprising how small the capital registered in firms operating in Florence in 1602-1604 was in comparison with the capital of companies operating abroad. By 1648-50 the mean capital for companies operating outside of Florence remained about the same, but the mean for firms operating in Florence more than doubled. The growth in size of firms followed precisely the direction of patrician reinvestment in silk. By 1648-50 the capitalization of merchant com­ panies at Florence had almost tripled, while the capitalization of silk firms had more than tripled. The oligarchic nature of control is indi­ cated further by the investment of larger firms in smaller ones. This ac­ counted for 7 percent of the total capital registered in 1602-1604, for 10 percent in 1648-50, and for 18 percent in 1693-95. One can see the results of this process from the pattern of invest­ ments in 1695 and 1736. The inability for new interests to emerge im­ mobilized the business community. In 1695, among no investors, the 10 largest subscribed 52 percent of all the registered capital. Nine of these were from older patrician houses, in descending order of the magnitude of their interests: the Riccardi, Tempi, and Franceschi, with more than 50,000 Scudi, the Morelli, Rinuccini, Gherardi, Quaratesi, and Torrigiani, with more than 20,000 Scudi; and the Frescobaldi with 15,000 Scudi. The only non-patrician with more than 10,000 Scudi was a Pisan, Orazio Samminiatelli, with holdings in a merchant company at Livorno. Together, they controlled the three large Florentine banks, the only wool firm registered in that year, four of the five silk firms, " Pellegrini, Relazioni inedite di ambasciatori lucchesi, 123.

CHANGING FORTUNES

and the two Negozi di Battiloro. They controlled two-thirds of the capital and had interests in a third of the firms registered at Florence, more than a third of the capital registered in merchant companies at Livorno, and about a quarter of the capital invested abroad. In 1736 pa­ trician control was beginning to wane, the result of the beginning of new investments among non-nobles. In 1736 the ten largest investors controlled only 40 percent of the total capital registered and only six were older patricians. The newcomers were one house of new nobles, three houses of non-nobles, and at a lower level a sizeable number of small investors outside of the elite.12 Such new investors continued to grow in number and significance through the eighteenth century as the dominance of the patricians decreased further, and as the seventeenthcentury involution began to give way to new tentative development. The Expansion of Landed Estates

The other large area of patrician investment was land, and in a period when business investments seemed unsure, investment in land un­ doubtedly seemed both profitable and secure, especially with the rap­ idly rising food prices of the late sixteenth century. Landed investment helped to preserve family fortunes, and through expenditure of landed income became an important element in the urban economy. The growth of landed estates also gave the patricians a new involvement in the Florentine territorial state. The land tax accounts compiled by clerks in the office of the Decima make it possible to see how patrician landholdings expanded. The Decima was a tax on landed income— land, houses, shops, and mills—that in 1495 had finally replaced the Republican Catasto of 1427, and the initial assessments on which it was based were completed in 1498. Basically, the tax was a levy of onetenth of revenue, after certain deductions, paid by Florentine citizens and inhabitants of the Contado on all property they owned within the Florentine state. Taxes were levied separately on inhabitants of the Distretto—Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Volterra—but property owned by Flor­ entines in the Distretto was taxed through the Decima. Assessments were brought up to date in 1534 and partly renewed in 1576 for houses and shops in Florence, but they remained unchanged thereafter. Irre12 On the new investors of the eighteenth century, see Litchfield, "Les investissements en commerce."

PART V

spective of any changes in landed revenue, Florentines continued to pay the land tax on the basis of the assessments of 1534 until the suppression of the office of the Decima in 1776, and they continued to pay taxes partly on the basis of the initial assessments until a new Tuscan Catasto was drawn up in the 1830s.13 The current tax accounts of families were kept in double-entry ledg­ ers, in which the tax values of different pieces of property, in Florins of account, were transferred from father to son and from owner to owner. When Florentine citizens bought or sold property among themselves, the tax values were transferred from account to account in the books for the city. When they bought property from inhabitants of the Contado, the values were transferred from the books of the Contado to those of the city. When they bought property in the Distretto that was not previously subject to the Decima, an ad hoc assessment was rjiade of its revenue at about 2 percent of the purchase price; this value was entered into the books for the city and began its circulation from ac­ count to account. Occasionally new assessments were made as divi­ sions of holdings or agglomerations of previously distinct properties made the original descriptions unrecognizable, and there were contin­ ual adjustments of tax accounts for houses inhabited by the owners, which were exempt from taxation. Thus, although the Decima was clearly an ineffective tax on revenue, the fact that assessments seldom changed gives them value as an index of the amount of property held, from which one can deduce the increase or decrease of property hold­ ings of Florentine families over two and a half centuries. Decima accounts can be followed from generation to generation eas­ ily through the tax books. Table 11.2 shows the change in accounts of thirteen older patrician houses from the time of the new assessments in 1534 to the suppression of the office of the Decima in 1776.14 They were chosen to represent different levels of landowning in 1713, when compilation of a new set of tax books makes it possible to survey the holdings of the elite as a whole. Five of the houses chosen, the Riccardi, Guicciardini, Mannelli, Gondi of Santa Croce, and Bartolommei, were in the highest quintile of landed wealth. Three, the Arrighetti, Gianni, 13

On the organization and administration of the Decima, see Pagnini, Delia Decima, 1,

37-108; E. Conti, 1 catasti agrari, 131-97. 14

Ten houses were from the group frequently priors in the fifteenth century, and three

from the group less frequently priors.

CHANGING FORTUNES

and Gondi of Santa Maria Novella, were in the second quintile. Two, the De Nobili and Attavanti, were in the third; and the De Cerchi, Pepi, and Buonarroti-Simoni were in the fourth. No houses were chosen from the lowest quintile because some in this group were substantial houses with fiefs exempt from taxation, or new patricians and nobles with landholdings chiefly outside of Florentine territory that were not taxed. In tracing the accounts, related branches of families were grouped together. But the Gondi, although descended from one Re­ publican Casata, were two houses under the Duchy, one in the quarter of Santa Croce and the other in the quarter of Santa Maria Novella; they did not exchange any property in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and are considered distinct. Seven of the houses also had investments registered with the Mercanzia: the Riccardi in three years, the Guicciardini and Bartolommei in 1604, the Gianni in 1604 and 1650, the Mannelli in 1604, 1695, and 1736, the Gondi of Santa Crocein 1695, and the DeNobiliin 1736. The Decima accounts of most of them increased steadily as investment moved from business to land. An increase in landholding was the un­ derlying development of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth cen­ turies. But when one looks closely at the Decima accounts, one can also see how the expansion and concentration of landed properties was ac­ complished, and a development appears in the land market that was quite similar to what happened in the business community: a relative weakening of the position of smaller urban landowners in favor of wealthy landowners in the elite. Property owning was more broadly distributed among different groups in the sixteenth century than it was in the eighteenth. The expansion of patrician estates was accomplished by buying properties from other Florentines rather than by direct pur­ chases from inhabitants of the Contado or Distretto, a factor in the ur­ ban bias of the land market, and through successive purchases and sales, property became concentrated in fewer hands, even within the elite. Table 11.2 also shows the number of distinct tax accounts in the thir­ teen families during the six years. At the beginning of the period, in 1534 and 1604, most houses had many particular Decima accounts, the result of distribution of ownership among different branches of fami­ lies and different households, and average Decima assessments per ac­ count were relatively small. Particular accounts could involve different

TABLE

11.2

T H E D E V E L O P M E N T OF PATRICIAN D E C I M A A C C O U N T S .

I534-I776

(in Soldi of Florins) 1534

1604

1650

1695

1776

1736

Riccardi

896

3,237

7,020

10,881

12,264

13,766

Index

(100)

(783)

(1213)

(1367)

(1535)

I

2

2

3

Accounts

1

(361) I

Guicciardini

3.551

5,353

4,890

5,889

4,954

4,309

Index

(100)

(150)

(137)

(165)

(139)

(121)

15

10

7

7

5

1

Mannelli

1,922

1,896

1,584

2,118

3,234

3,191

Index

(100)

(98)

(82)

(110)

(168)

(165)

14

15

9

5

2

2

Accounts

Accounts Bartolommei Index Accounts

246

707

1,033

2,729

2,347

2,562

(100)

(286)

(419)

(1106)

(951)

(1038)

4

6

3

I

1

2

3,838

3,246

3,957

Condi (SC)

2,457

3,139

3,521

Index

(100)

(127)

(143)

(156)

(132)

(161)

6

9

5

4

2

Accounts Arrighetti Index Accounts Gianni Index Accounts Gondi

(SMN)

Index

323

841

1,489

3,511

2,284

2,434

(100)

(260)

(460)

(1086)

(707)

(753)

1

3

5

5

4

4

167

503

1,359

1,680

2,020

2,256

(100)

(1343)

(299)

(809)

(1000)

(1202)

2

3

1

1

2

867

1,862

1,855

967

1,208

-

(100)

(214)

(213)

(in)

(139)

-

4

10

3

1

I

-

De Nobili

1,673

2,291

1,262

i,57i

1,108

1,117

Index

(100)

(136)

(75)

(90)

(66)

(66)

15

9

7

5

1

2

Accounts

Accounts Attavanti Index Accounts De Cerchi Index Accounts

259

374

946

658

1,001

(100)

(144)

(365)

(253)

(386)

-

4

3

5

6

2

302

367

566

1,020

991

1,228

(100)

(121)

(186)

(336)

(327)

(405)

2

I

I

3

I

2

-

C H A N G I N G FORTUNES TABLE 11.2 (cont.)

1534 Pepi Index Accounts Buonarroti-

1604

1736

1695

1650

1776

506

414

600

646

595

914

(100)

(81)

(118)

(127)

(179)

8

8

3

2

("7) 2

377

508

476

541

677

677

(100)

(134) 2

(126)

(143)

(179)

(179)

13,553 (100)

21,494

26,607

36,000

35,932

(158)

(196)

(265)

(265)

36,414 (268)

67

68

49

40

28

21

3

Simoni Index Accounts ALL

FAMILIES

Index Accounts SOURCE: ASF,

2

1

D e c i m a Granducale, C a m p i o n i , 1 5 3 4 , 1 6 1 8 , and 1 7 1 3 .

branches of families, common holdings of fathers and sons, brothers, or other family members. There were accounts for dowries of married women, widows, and very occasionally for unmarried daughters, usually nuns. For example, the fifteen accounts of the Guicciardini in 1 5 3 4 were divided among five branches of the family. The major branch, with three particular accounts, contained the assessments of the descendants of Jacopo di Piero Guicciardini (1422-90), with one major account: a joint account of the historian Francesco Guicciardini and his three brothers that made up two-thirds of the Guicciardini's total tax. But there were also other Guicciardini: five accounts of the descendants of Giovanni di Luigi Guicciardini ( 1 3 8 5 - 1 4 5 5 ) , and eight small accounts of three other branches of the family with quite small properties such as a house or shop in Florence, or small pieces of rural property.' 5 15

The accounts of the Guicciardini in 1534 were as follows (the sums reported are the Decima tax values in Florins): I. Descendants of Piero di Luigi Guicciardini (1378-1441): Bongianni di Piero di J a copo di Piero di Luigi G., 6.15.7 {ASF, Decima Granducale, Campioni 1534, S. Spirito, Nicchio, A-F, 188); Franco, Luigi, Jacopo, Girolamo fratelli e figli di Piero di Jacopo di Piero di Luigi G., 93.10 (ibid., 431); Franco, Luigi, Jacopo, Girolamo di Piero di Jacopo G., 2.5 (ibid., 457). II. Descendants of Giovanni di Luigi Guicciardini (1385-1455): Franco di Giovanni di Franco di Giovanni G., 3.6.3 (Nicchio, A-F, 416); Niccolo di Michele di Giovanni G.,

219

PART V

These small independent accounts tended to disappear from the tax books from the mid-sixteenth century onward. In 1604 the number of accounts of the Guicciardini had fallen to ten, the collateral branches of the family had decreased to three, and the three accounts of the primary branch accounted for 90 percent of the family's aggregate tax. In 1695 the number of Guicciardini accounts had decreased to seven, and in 1776 there was only one. Among the Mannelli, there were fourteen ac­ counts in 1534, representing six branches of the family, with the nine accounts of the two major branches accounting for 90 percent of the total tax. In 1604 there were fifteen Mannelli accounts, but the collat­ eral branches of the family had decreased to five; in 1650 there were four, and by in the eighteenth century there was only one. This weakening of independent households and secondary family lines continued during the seventeenth century as branches of families became impoverished, sold property, or died out, a development re­ lated to the demographic phenomenon of the limitation of marriages that was discussed in Chapter 2. Undoubtedly other sources of income than urban or rural properties permitted family members to marry in the sixteenth century, which accounts for the greater proliferation of households with tax accounts. But as income came to depend more heavily on immobile property, it became less possible for second and third sons to marry. Two of the thirteen houses considered here died out before the end of the eighteenth century: the Attavanti in 1752, and the Gondi of Santa Maria Novella in 1767. The property of the Atta­ vanti passed through inheritance to another patrician family, the Rica-

11.11 (Nicchio, M-Z, 133); Orlando di Giovanni di Franco G., 6.3 (ibid., 213); Piero di Luca G., 6.5 (ibid., 258); Vmcenzo di Giovanni di Luigi, Giovanni di Piero di Giovanni G., 13.16.3 (ibid., 473). m. Descendants of Niccolo di Piero di Luigi Guicciardini (1410-42): Batista di Baccio di Niccolo G., 4.9.11 (Nicchio, A-F, 172); Braccio, Niccolo di Antonio di Braccio G., 2.17.10 (ibid., 218); Ginevra figlia fu di Oddo di Niccolo G. e donna fu di Lorenzo di Niccolo Soderini, 5.15.8 (Nicchio, G-L, 68); Niccolo di Baccio di Niccolo G., 5. ι ο (Nic­ chio, M-Z, 152). IV. Other lines: Niccolo di Ghino di Niccolo G., 6.14 (Nicchio, M-Z, 448); Piero di Jacopo di Giovanni G., 2.10.4 (ibid., 243); Tommaso di Girolamo di Batista G., 6.19.11 (ibid., 448); Giovanni di Niccolo di Giovanni G. (Nicchio, G-L, 22). See Litta, Famiglie celebri, 11, "Guicciardini." 220

CHANGING FORTUNES

soli, while the property of the Gondi was divided between the convent where the last two nuns of this family ended their days, and the Mannelli, through the marriage of a third Gondi sister. The Mannelli had profited earlier from the extinction of a branch of the Galilei, in 1708, whose property they inherited and whose name they added to theirs. Ultimately, in 1831, the Mannelli also became extinct and their collec­ tion of property passed to the Riccardi. The concentration of family holdings was further facilitated by the increasing tendency to bind es­ tates with entails, fedecommessi, in the sixteenth century. Nearly all of the houses considered here had estates bound in this way.16 The fedecommesso of the Riccardi was instituted by the will of Giovanni di Gabriello Riccardi in 1568 and amplified by the will of his son Francesco in 1611. These established a primogenitura for a first son, a secondogenitura for a second son, and bound further property into a fedecommesso uni­ versale to be shared by any additional family members. Not only land, but also Monte shares were involved, and eventually the Riccardi also established a prelatura to support a son in the Church.17 In 1747 the Mannelli claimed to be in possession of property bound by fedecommessi established successively by wills of 1564, 1570, 1583, 1642, 1655, and 1675, those of the Bartolommei dated from 1652 and 1695, and those of the Gianni from 1597, 1640, and 1743.18 As prospects for commer­ cial speculation diminished, more and more care was devoted to the preservation of landed estates. The Decima accounts of the thirteen families show a steady increase in landholdings between 1534 and 1695. The building of estates was a continuous process, but one clearly linked to the seventeenth-century relocation of capital, for after 1695 the additive index of all accounts stopped growing. Only the Riccardi, who were still shifting business investments to land in the 1730s, increased their estates significantly in the eighteenth century. The chronology and extent of change differed from house to house. The Riccardi, Bartolommei, and Gianni had 16 As reported in the registration of 1747, ASF, Magistrato Supremo, F 4021 bis, "Repertorio dei fedecommessi dell'anno 1747." 17 ASF, Carte Mannelli-Galilei-Riccardi, F 294. 18 ASF, Carte Mannelli-Galilei-Riccardi, F 142, ins. 2; ASF, Carte Bartolommei, F 252, inventory in "Debitori e creditori, eredi del marchese Mattia Bartolommei"; ASF, Carte Gianni, F 54, ins. 30, "Fedecommesso."

PART V

small Decima accounts in 1534, and all moved upward in landed wealth. But the change for the other houses was much less. The Guicciardini and Gondi of Santa Croce, and at the bottom of the scale the Pepi and Buonarroti-Simoni, continued with about the same amount of property in the eighteenth century that they had had in the sixteenth. Discounting the two houses that became extinct, only one family, the De Nobili, fell into hard times in the seventeenth century and emerged in the 1730s with a smaller assessment than they had had in 1534. The relationship of patrician houses to their growing estates appears more clearly from their geographical dispersion. At the time of the suppression of the Decima in 1776, when administration of the land tax was decentralized and tax values were reassigned to the communities where the properties were actually located, the estates of the eleven sur­ viving families were mostly in the countryside of the Contado closer to Florence, where they were scattered through nearly every community. Sixteen percent of the global value, and probably more given the de­ ductions for houses of habitation, was urban property in the capital: palaces, urban rental properties, shops, and houses. Twenty-three per­ cent was distant from Florence, in the Distretto. But only six of the eleven families, chiefly the larger owners, had property this far from Florence. The remaining 61 percent was in the Contado, good farm­ land planted with grain, vines, olives, and mulberries along the Arno and its tributaries. But it was the accumulative total of holdings rather than their concentration in a single locality that distinguished the wealthiest families, such as the Riccardi, from those with mediumsized or smaller estates, such as the Gianni and Pepi. Tuscan agriculture was marked by small scattered farms with detached fields, and no fam­ ily owned all of its property in one place. The basic unit of ownership was a Podere, a small farm worked by a family of sharecroppers. For larger owners, groups of Poderi were clustered around villas, which might be occupied by the owners for a few weeks during the late sum­ mer and early autumn. The clusters of farms were administered by es­ tate agents called Fattori. But the piece-by-piece accumulation of prop­ erty made it possible for holdings to be dispersed in small units through a large zone. The accounts of three families, the Riccardi, Gianni, and Pepi, show the nature and peculiar mode of development of estates at different Iev-

CHANGING FORTUNES

els of wealth. The Tuscan holdings of the Riccardi, who were among the five patrician houses with the largest Decima accounts in 1713, con­ tained some 97,000 Stiora of land in the 1740s—the equivalent of 5,700 hectares (14,000 acres)—and the family owned more land in the Papal States near Rome. 19 They had two large palaces in Florence: the old Medici palace in Via Larga, which they had bought in 1659, and a villa and gardens in Via Gualfonda, along with other urban properties. The nucleus of their country estates from the fifteenth century was in the Distretto—three Fattorie in the Podesterie of Palaia and Lari of the ter­ ritory of Pisa. The first, Villa Saletta, was described in the fedecommesso of 1568 with fourteen Poderi and 8,790 Stiora of land; but by the 1740s it had grown to fifty-three Poderi and 42,300 Stiora. The second, Cava, had twenty Poderi with 8,460 Stiora of land; and the third, Chianni, in the region of the Riccardi fief, had eight Poderi, two mills, a granary, and extensive woodlands, a total of 10,200 Stiora. There were six smaller Fattorie in the Contado. One was in the Podesteria of Campi, near Florence, with eleven Poderi; one at Fiesole, with three Poderi; one south of the Arno at Terrafina, with seven Poderi; and one around their princely villa at Castelpulci, with twenty-one Poderi and 3,800 Stiora of land. Further southeast were the Fattorie of Paneretta and San Cristofano, with twenty-two and thirteen Poderi and 22,800 and 4,600 Stiora, respectively. The Riccardi also had smaller properties, houses and groups of Poderi, north of Florence and southeastward in the re­ gion near Arezzo, so that their holdings extended practically along the whole length of the Arno. The Riccardi estates were truly large enterprises, capable of produc­ ing grain, oil, wine, and cattle in some quantity for the local market, and they brought in a large revenue in the 1720s and 1730s of some 18,000 Scudi yearly. 20 Lower down the scale of tax values were much more modest holdings, but they still provided a reasonably comforta­ ble and secure income. From a summary of the fedecommesso of the Gianni in 1747, it appears that this family, besides their ancient palace and garden in Borgo S. Niccolo, and three other houses or parts of " ASF, Carte Riccardi, F 263, "Inventario originale dei beni stabili del fedecommesso di Riccardo Riccardi, 1612-1717." This document seems to have been drawn up at the time of the inquiry about entails in 1747. 20

Malanima, I Riccardi, 253.

PART V

houses in Florence, owned thirty-six Poderi, with some extra scattered pieces of land in the Contado and one small property in the Distretto, a total of some 9,000 Stiora of land (1,300 acres). These were grouped into three Fattorie; the oldest, consisting of seventeen Poderi, was in the village of Antella, southeast of Florence. Then there were nine Po­ deri in the Fattoria of the Mugello, and seven Poderi with some addi­ tional pieces of land and houses of more recent acquisition near the city to the souths 1 All together the Gianni properties brought in an average income during the 1720s to 1740s of about 2,000 Scudi yearly. 22 The Pepi were well below the median of tax assessments and their holdings were much smaller than those of the Gianni. In the 1730s they owned one large town house and part of another house in Florence, and also rural properties consisting of six Poderi organized as two small Fattorie with some scattered parts of houses and pieces of land. One, with 112 Stiora of land, four Poderi and a small villa at Fiesole, brought in an annual income of some 300 Scudi, while two Poderi with a house and 165 Stiora of land at Ponte a Rignano south of Florence brought in about the same. They also owned seven small properties in communi­ ties north and east of Florence, and some pieces of land at Castel Fiorentino far to the south, which was leased to a family of landowners of this region in the sixteenth century and finally sold to them in 1795. All together, the Pepi estate brought in an annual income of 950 Scudi in the 1730s, about 3 percent of the estimated capital value of the land and houses—a very modest return, although through more intensive ex­ traction of income their Decima tax rate had fallen from 10 percent in 1534 to only 3 to 4 percent in the 1730s. 23 The expansion of patrician estates was clearly a further conquest by Florence of its regional state, a new invasion of the countryside by ab­ sentee proprietors from the capital. But this did not mean that the pa­ tricians developed new skills in farming after their initial investments. They maintained traditional forms of cultivation and hardly ever vis­ ited their estates, except in the few weeks of villeggiatura of the late summer, or when younger sons were forced into rural exile to seek " ASF, Carte Gianni, F 54, ins. 30, "Fedecommesso." " Ibid., ins. 24, "Demostrazione dell'entrata annua al netto di alcuni aggravi del patrimonio dell'IU. Sig. Niccolo Gianni, 1748." 21 Arehivio Pepi, Locazioni e bilanci.

CHANGING FORTUNES

places of temporary lodging. And the transfer of property from Contadini and Distrettuali to patricians of the capital was accomplished in a less direct manner than one might think. Reinvestment of business capital did not lead to a sudden increase of acquisitions directly from owners in the Contado and Distretto. Instead the same tension existed between larger and smaller proprietors in Florence as between large and small businesses in the registers of the Mercanzia. Florentine citizens already owned sizeable amounts of rural property at the beginning of the sixteenth century, which appear in the numerous small Decima ac­ counts of 1534, and throughout the sixteenth century there was spec­ ulation in what remained basically the urban land market. Patricians reinvesting capital bought property from other Florentines rather than from owners in the Contado and Distretto as citizens with small prop­ erties became caught in the same crunch of rising prices and need for ready cash that affected small independent entrepreneurs in business. There was a redistribution of holdings from citizens of modest means to families in the elite. The trend in the land market is indicated by the yearly number of tax transactions (arroti) in the books of the Decima that represent purchases and sales of property, inheritances, and redecimations of houses and shops. The late sixteenth century clearly ex­ perienced a booming land market, with many tax transactions, but the number decreased considerably in the seventeenth century, a time of falling land values as the land market became turgid and fixed—a tran­ sition from a seller's to a buyer's market. 24 The land market of the late sixteenth century favored citizens of modest means as well as wealthy houses of the elite. But when patrician buyers continued to expand their holdings in the seventeenth century, they were able to profit from the less favorable situation of small owners and their need to sell. A close look at the tax accounts of the Pepi, Gianni, and Riccardi shows this process in operation. The estates of all three families were amassed gradually through many small purchases, and largely from other Florentines—that is, through acquisition of properties already in24 The number of transactions averaged some 1,400-1,600 yearly in the 1560s and some 1,300-1,400 yearly in the 1570s, large numbers that reflected speculation inspired by rising population and inflation, in the 1620s the average number fell to 800-900 yearly, in the 1650s it was only 600-700 yearly, and it fell still further, to 500-600 transactions yearly, in the 1720s. See ASF, Decima Granducale, Inventario, Arroti.

PART V

scribed in the registers of the Decima as being owned by Florentine cit­ izens. Between 1534 and 1776 more than six hundred purchases and sales were recorded in the three family accounts, which show the provenance of purchases or destination of sales case by case—from the tax accounts of other citizens, from inhabitants of the Contado, from the Distretto, or from the Church. But the three different families were affected quite differently by the changing market for land. The Pepi were below the level of wealth that might have cushioned the effects of the late sixteenth-century inflation. They were a large family in the sixteenth century, divided into four distinct and inde­ pendent lines, but only one line survived into the eighteenth century. Because the Pepi properties were not protected by a fedecommesso at any point, the property of the extinct lines was disbursed. The property of the second and third lines of the family had been combined by inherit­ ance in 1628, and was ultimately left to the Church in 1704, a legacy of the last two nuns in the family's second branch. The fourth line disap­ peared from the tax books in 1593 and its property was sold, a rare in­ stance of a transfer of property from the books of citizens back to the books of rural owners of the Contado. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the first line of Pepi improved, giving the family a net positive balance after 1604. But as a group, the four lines of Pepi lost property in the six­ teenth century. Between 1534 and 1604 forty transactions were added to the total family account, for a tax value of 32 Florins, and forty trans­ actions were deducted, for a tax value of 42 Florins, a net loss of 10 Florins. The family did buy but also sold property in the rising land market of the sixteenth century. By far the largest value of purchases (86 percent) was from other citizens, as was nearly all (96 percent) the value of sales. Among the purchasers one can recognize familiar names in the elite: Acciaiuoli, Canigiani, Capponi, Da Filicaia, Mazzinghi, De Medici, Del Nero, Pazzi, Delia Stufa. There was a gradual drift of tax values from the books of the Contado and from newly described prop­ erties in the Distretto to the family, and then as the Pepi sold property, into the Decima accounts of other citizens, a net balance in favor of the city. There were always more purchases than sales from the Contado, and there were no ascertainable resales to the Distretto. Once a prop­ erty was bought and passed into the tax books of citizens, it seemed

CHANGING FORTUNES

destined to pass up the ladder of wealth from one patrician house to an­ other. The story of the Gianni is more straightforward, since this family had only one line and possessed little immobile property in the six­ teenth century. The wealth of the Gianni initially came chiefly from trade. The family had investments in merchant companies registered with the Mercanzia in 1604 and 1650, and an eighteenth-century de­ scendant, Niccolo Gianni, described the "... many account books and sacks of letters concerning the business ventures of our ancestors . . ." in the family archive, which have since been lost. 25 The Decima ac­ count of the Gianni grew steadily. Nearly half of the net value of their estate was acquired during the lifetime of Ridolfo di Tommasso Gianni (1564-1644), who established the fedecommesso of the house, and 90 per­ cent of the tax value added to the Gianni account in the seventeenth century came from other Florentine citizens. During the lifetime of Ridolfo Gianni, about a third of the increase was an inheritance from the Benivieni, an old family that became extinct in 1618. The Fattoria of the Gianni at Antella was a Benivieni property. Their other acquisi­ tions, with the exception of two transactions with the Nasi in 1623 and 1624 (who died out in 1667), were small purchases made from citizens with unrecognizable surnames, clearly modest families outside of the patrician group. About half of the huge Riccardi estates were acquired between 1550 and 1650. Considering the period 1534-1776 as a whole, 66 percent of the tax value added to the Riccardi account was from the Decima books of other citizens, 30 percent was newly described property from the Distretto, 2 percent was transferred from the books of the Contado, and about 2 percent came from the Church. In this case there were truly large new acquisitions in the Distretto that passed to the ownership of Florentines for the first time. But the Riccardi also acquired property 2 i ASF, Carte Gianni, F 54, ins. 20. A folder of "sepolti della famiglia Gianni" men­ tions a line of merchants in southern France. In the Cathedral of Aries in Provence were ". . . Ie armi di Niccolo Gianni [ob. 1520] e della sua moglie . . . il quale Niccolo era figluolo di Francesco di Giovanni di Astorre Gianni e fu il primo che ando in Francia e cola fece il ramo, oggi mai spento, della nostra famiglia, il quale Niccolo ebbe per moglie Caterina de Ricave de Janon, dama primaria di Marsilia"; see ASF, Carte Gianni, F 60, ins.

225.

PART V

chiefly from other Florentines. The names of the sellers include many non-noble citizens. There were also houses in the elite that had been prominent in the fifteenth century but died out in the seventeenth century: Dell' Amorotta, Cini, Peri, Ubertini, and Valori. Dowries had some importance in the building of the Riccardi estate, although daughters of patrician families generally received cash when they married. The Riccardi received an estate from the Capponi in 1688, as part of the large dowry (25,000 Scudi) that had been promised for Cassandra di Vincenzo Capponi on her marriage with Francesco di Cosimo Riccardi in 1669. Other sellers of property to the Riccardi were patricians of roughly their own rank: Albizzi, Buondelmonte, Gerini, Gondi, Niccolini, Pecori, Strozzi, and Ubaldini. These were all houses with substantial estates at the beginning of the eighteenth century who were effecting exchanges with other families for the purpose of achieving more efficient administration of scattered Poderi and pieces of land. Some estimates of revenue help to show how business investment, landed wealth, salaries from office, and other sources of income were balanced in family budgets. Salaries, as was indicated in Part IV, were secondary sources of revenue when other items are considered. Only poor families in the scale of landed wealth had regular income that was less than what they might expect to gain from officeholding. Business investment, landed estates, investments in the Monte of the ducal debt, and interest on private loans made through bills of exchange were the chief items of revenue. An account book of Ruberto Pepi (1572-1634), from the first line of Pepi, shows a situation in the first decades of the seventeenth century in which landed income was still a very small item of revenue. Ruberto Pepi shared use of the property in his inheritance with an unmarried elder brother; their joint Decima account was established in 1605, four years before his marriage at the age of thirty-three. His gross income in the years 1616-21 averaged 790 Scudi yearly. An ability to make casual profits in different ventures marked the success of Ruberto Pepi. His income came chiefly (61 percent) from irregular profits made in connection with his office as Guardiano of the Dogana, which gave him the perquisite of selling damaged and abandoned merchandise. He combined this with other small business deals involving merchandise shipped to agents at Livorno. A second important item of income (18 percent) was traffic in Cambi—bills of exchange—that were either pri228

CHANGING FORTUNES

vate loans or payments from commercial transactions. Only 6 percent of Ruberto Pepi's income came from his regular salary at the Dogana, his short-term employment in the magistracies of the Nove, Monte Comune, and Pupilli, and from the provincial office of Vicar of S. Miniato that he held in 1620. In addition, a relatively small amount, 13 percent, came from landed property, although more in kind—grain, wine, oil, vegetables, fattened cattle, firewood—was undoubtedly brought into Florence for family consumption. 26 The fortunes of the Pepi were not very much different a hundred years later, although in the 1740s the items of income of the greatgrandson of Ruberto Pepi, Francesco Gaspero di Antonio Pepi (17081764), had changed. The family landholdings were larger than they had been in 1620; but due to a division with his two brothers, Francesco Gaspero had the use of only a third of the estate. His total income in 1745, 722 Scudi, was slightly less than that of his ancestor. Private busi­ ness dealings had disappeared as an item of revenue and were replaced by a new item—interest on shares in the Monte Comune and Monte di Pieta, which provided 24 percent of gross income. Landed revenue had increased as a proportion of income to 39 percent. So had his salary from office, in this case the provvisione of 120 Scudi per year from a fixed office in the Arte dei Mercatanti, to 16 percent. In fact, Francesco Gaspero was living about 10 percent above his income when the estate balance that reports this information was drawn up, a gap filled by bor­ rowing through bills of exchange. Still, his share of the Pepi estate sup­ ported the living expenses of a family of two adults and five children, plus assignments to his two brothers to equalize the division of 1736. It provided upkeep of a medium-sized town house in Florence, a small villa at Careggi, three male and two female servants, school fees for a son at the Collegio Cicognano at Pistoia, and payments for the monacation of a daughter—fair returns from a modest income, despite the shift from business to landed property as the chief support of wealth. ίη In 1751, Niccolo Gianni wrote in a notebook of memoranda on the administration of the Gianni patrimony: "... the best assignment, by my understanding, and the best sustenance for a house of Florentine Archivio Pepi, "Entrata ed uscita di Ruberto di Ruberto Pepi." Ibid., "Demostrazione dell'annua entrata e uscita del patrimonio del 111. Sig. Franco Gaspero Pepi." 26

27

PART V

gentlemen, is land." The income of this nobleman, the father of the economist Francesco Maria Gianni, came almost exclusively from the Fattorie in the Gianni estate and from urban rents, which he enjoyed undivided. He was the only one of his two brothers and three sisters to marry; his younger brother was a priest and his three sisters became nuns. Of his own three sons and four daughters, one son and one daughter married. He calculated that the gross revenue of his house be­ tween 1723 and 1747 had averaged 2,593 Scudi yearly, about the same as in the time of his father. Of this total, Cambi provided 17 percent, Luoghi di Monte 3 percent, Fattorie and rents 77 percent, and income from office about 3 percent. Fixed charges, assignments to his brother and sisters, taxes, and upkeep cost an average of 680 Scudi yearly, leav­ ing an ample net income of 1,917 Scudi for two adults and three minor children. This relative affluence might be misunderstood if one were to read out of context the moral injunctions to economize in Gianni's notebook: "Never order anything without having the money in hand to pay for it. . . . Cultivate the Poderi intensively and well, keep the houses for rental in good condition, and the houses of the Contadini. . . . Lend out money at low interest so as to be without risk of losing the capital and having to litigate. . . . Be sure to collect regularly from those who owe, bad debtors become worse with indulgence. . . . Pay great attention to daily expenses. . . . To provide for uncertain eventualities . . . such as dowries . . . put out at interest at least 500 Scudi a year."28 With the Riccardi, at the top of the scale of wealth, such economy might seem needless, were it not that the Riccardi's extravagant scale of expenditure ultimately forced them near bankruptcy in 1808. Here, be­ cause of the scale of wealth, the change from mobile to immobile prop­ erty had a less clear effect on income. And aside from the dignities of the Senate and the Court, the Riccardi never deigned to hold office in the bureaucracy. Their capital resources were such that they generally drew a larger proportion of gross revenue from business investments, Cambi, and Luoghi di Monte than they did from their estates. Their mean gross income in 1690-1719 was 36,070 Scudi, of which their es­ tates provided only 16,789 Scudi, or 47 percent. Capital invested in a"

ASF, Carte Gianni, F 54, ins 20, "Diario di ricordi mensuali per la zienda di Casa

Gianni."

CHANGING FORTUNES

business firms, Luoghi di Monte, and private loans yielded a return of some 6 percent on capital value, while the return from land was only 2 percent.29 Cosimo Riccardi liquidated business investments in Accomandite of about 80,000 Scudi between 1719 and 1739 and invested some of this capital in land, while the remainder went to meet the fam­ ily's current expenditures. It should be noted that the Riccardi lived in a princely manner. They spent huge sums for the purchase, enlarge­ ment, and redecoration of the Medici palace, for objects of gold, silver and jewels, for clothing, servants, carriages, receptions, and dowries.30 In their near financial ruin at the end of the eighteenth century, they were ultimately obliged to sell landed property, but their earlier extrav­ agance shows how much residual wealth the patricians possessed, and how relatively long this wealth lasted. These were the two large contours of the shift in private fortunes that underlay the interests of patrician officeholders and the economic pol­ icy of the seventeenth-century dukes. It is hardly new to say that there was a shift of investments from business to land. The "return to the land" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has long been a theme in the history of early modern Italy.31 But it is important to note that the shift in habits of the elite was less sharp than might be pictured. Not only did patricians remain the chief investors in Florentine commerce and industries through the seventeenth century, but their acquisition of landed properties was carried out in the highly speculative manner that continued to reflect the commercial habits of the city. Nonetheless, there was a significant change in the Florentine economy and, despite the shift from wool to silk, an undeniable weakening of its industrial base. With the decline of involvement in foreign trade, the horizons of the city narrowed to the agricultural resources of Tuscany itself. Rev­ enue that came into the city from the countryside in the form of rents, or of profits from grain, wine, oil, and cattle in the landlords' share, was spent increasingly to support the city's large and growing service population of artisans in luxury trades, administrators, servants, and priests. With a dwindling industrial base, the population of Florence gave way to an upturn in rural and small-town populations at the end 29

Malanima, I Riccardi, 250-54.

30

Ibid., 194-212.

31

For a classic statement, see Bulferetti, "L'oro la terra e la societa," 5-66.

PART V

of the seventeenth century, when the Duchy slowly began a new phase of growth. But the shift to landed resources was imperfectly realized in the habits of the elite and the policy of the ducal state, which through the seventeenth century continued to reflect the patricians' long-preserved involvement in Florentine commerce and industry.

THE ECONOMIC POLICY OF PATRIMONIALISM

Ducal legislation of the seventeenth century reflects the mercantile pol­ icy that protected the patricians' interests in the capital. Here it is dif­ ficult to distinguish clearly between policy of the dukes and of the elite, because the aims of the patricians and dukes coincided in many re­ spects. The dukes consistently protected traditional interests of the capital, but there was a shift in emphasis between the sixteenth and sev­ enteenth centuries. The policy of the first dukes was more favorable to the Duchy as a whole, with new privileges granted to Pisa, the estab­ lishment of Livorno as a free port, and efforts to promote drainage and new crops in the countryside. However, in the seventeenth century the regime became more narrowly concerned with the protection of inter­ ests of Florence. This policy succeeded in partially adapting the Flor­ entine textile industry to new conditions. But despite the increasing significance of landed investment, the ducal regime gave little attention to the countryside or to improvement in Tuscan agriculture. To understand the strength of the persistent urban polity, one must remember that the Florentine business community remained firmly in the hands of patricians, and of patricians employed in the bureaucracy, through the seventeenth century. Officeholders, and particularly sen­ ators and men in higher-level offices, tended to come from houses that ranked high in landed wealth and had investments in Accomandite reg­ istered by the Mercanzia. The guilds were a further contact between the commercial interests of the elite and ducal policy, and they continued to be important in the control of the city's industries. Patricians were continually involved in the guilds, which were exclusive and co-optive in their selection of the boards of consuls and deputies. The Arte della Lana and Arte della Seta represented the upper levels of Lanaiuoli and Setaiuoli who organized production. Textile workers, and even shop masters, were generally not guild members but sottoposti, or outwork­ ers under guild jurisdiction. Controls exercised by the Florentine guilds

PART V

extended into the countryside, where preparatory processes and spin­ ning took place, a fact that discouraged development of rural industry in the smaller towns.1 Both institutions and personnel focused on the capital. The Defense of Florentine Industry Guild regulation gave a conservative, if not rigidly fixed and unchang­ ing, strategy to the Florentine textile industry in the seventeenth-century crisis. Traditional aims of guild regulation in the wool and silk in­ dustries were to assure a supply of raw materials for Florentine cloth shops through control of prices of raw materials and of middle men who might speculate in the sale of unfinished materials. The guilds also regulated production in cloth shops at different levels and in different specializations, and set precise standards for particular types of cloth to assure uniformity of a high-quality product that could command atten­ tion in foreign markets. Local markets were regulated through gabelles designed to prevent competition from foreign cloth. Florentine pro­ ducers were favored over producers in provincial towns such as Prato, Pisa, Arezzo, and Cortona, which had their own guilds but were sub­ ordinated to the capital. In the wool industry, provincial producers were required to use inferior types of wool, and only Florentine cloth was exempt from internal gabelles, giving it an advantage in the inter­ nal market. In the silk industry, silk cloth could be woven only in Flor­ ence and at Pisa, but in 1614 Florence claimed the right of access to reeled silk produced in the territory of Pisa up to the city walls of Pisa itself. Basically, the countryside was expected to produce raw mate­ rials, while specialized shops in the capital were favored for production of cloth.2 The aim was to produce high-quality luxury cloth for export rather than lower quality cloth that might command a larger market. Unfortunately, from the mid-sixteenth century onward, producers in England, Holland, and later France produced a larger volume of highquality textiles, thus tending to close markets for Italian cloth in north­ western Europe at the time that cheaper northern textiles began to enter the Mediterranean to challenge Italian markets in the Levant. Tastes ' Doren, Learti Fiorentini, 11, 252-98. The regulations for wool and silk are summarized in Sarchiani, Ragionamento sul commercio, but with more detail in ASF, Seg. Gab., ϊ ιο6. 2

PATRIMONIALISM

changed as well, so that Italian cloth was not as sought after as previously, a trend that threatened to destroy the local Tuscan market. THE WOOL INDUSTRY

The patricians' strategy for protecting the textile industry grew out of the traditions of the guilds. At first little effort was made to change wool production to meet new conditions of the market. Florentine output of wool cloth, like that of Venice, increased in the mid-to-late sixteenth century to supply markets in the Levant, but both the rise and fall in volume of production came earlier at Florence, in the 1560s to 1570s, while Venetian output continued to rise until 1600-10.3 Little new legislation accompanied the expansion of production in the 1530s to 1560s. A reform of the guild statutes in the 1540s affirmed traditional controls of the industry, while later legislation reasserted the privileges of Florence over provincial towns through a renewal of the gabelles that distinguished types of wool that could be worked in 1570, a renewal of the prohibition to export unfinished wool in 1573, and a renewal in the regulation of the quality of wool cloth of 1595.4 With changing markets the type of cloth produced was a matter of importance. Florentine finished wool was rich, heavy cloth dyed in dark hues with woad, for which the raw material was imported from Spain. The highest qualities were called panni sate and rascie (serges). Lighter types of cloth utilized lower qualities of wool, and were called perpignani, stametti, and pannetti. English cloth entering the Mediterranean for the Levant in the last years of the sixteenth century seems mostly to have been a lighter-quality cloth called kersey.5 Producers may have attempted to meet this competition. In the 1570s the Spanish merchant Simon Ruiz thought Florentines were lowering the quality of cloth to gain a larger market. 6 In 1604 Vincenzo Pitti, the Provveditore of the Arte della Lana, reported that production was three-fifths rascie, e pannina ricca col pelo, high-quality wool; and two-fifths perpignani, kerseys.7 Production figures for different kinds of cloth in 1616 to 3 Romano, "A Florence au xvir siecle"; Sella, "Rise and Fall of the Venetian Wool Industry," 106-26. 4 Cantmi, Legislazione Toscana, vn, 230-31; xiv, 127-28. 5 R. Davis, "England and the Mediterranean." 6 Fanfani, "Effimera la npresa economica di Firenze," 344-51. 7 Carmona, "Sull'economia Toscana," 42-46.

235

PART V

1645, when output of wool was decreasing rapidly, indicate that lighter qualities of wool may have reached an even higher proportion of the total—70 percent in 1616-17, and 60 percent in 1644-45.8 But the production of traditional heavy wool resumed. In 1648 a group of wool warehousemen petitioned the Arte della Lana for license to import lighter qualities of cloth from Milan "seeing that in our industry stametti alia milanese are not produced, or other light stuff for use in the summer." The response of the deputies of the Arte della Lana—Senators Tempi, Manetti, Torrigiani, and Guasconi—was a stern defense of the set regulations, "the use of pannini di Firenze with express condition that the existing laws be observed."9 The bulk of new legislation affecting the Arte della Lana came from the 1610s to 1660s, the last phase of the crisis in wool. This had the defensive aim of securing the local Tuscan market for Florentine cloth by renewing the prohibitions of import of foreign goods and the regulations distinguishing finer qualities of cloth that could be produced in Florence.10 An effort was finally made in the 1660s to adjust the wool industry to changing tastes. Regulations set standards for production of new qualities of cloth: "panno sopraffino all' Olandese," "panno a fazione d'Olanda," "panno a fazione di Padova," "saie all'Inghilese," "saie alia Scotta" in 1664, and in 1667 "balettoni all'usanza di quelli forestieri."11 But this did not revive the Florentine wool industry. The output of cloths was 3,480 pieces in 1666, and about 2,000 in 1740.12 A report on market conditions in the 1660s provides a gloomy picture of adversity. For France, "business is at a standstill." For Spain, "we send a few pieces ofrascia nera sopraffine but in very small quantity." For Naples and Sicily, "since the peace of the two crowns [1659] a lot of French cloth has appeared, which has taken the market for ours." For Venice, "although our cloth is forbidden we send some saie rovescie color difuoco, . . . [and] . . . rascie sopraffine nere . . . but little is sent, since for some time now they have made use of English and Dutch cloth." For the Levant, "panni sopraffine scarlatti, but those sent have not succeeded so well 8

Romano, "A Florence au xvn e siecle," 511. ASF, Misc. Med., F 331, ins. 9. 10 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xvm, 127-31. " Ibid., 163-69. 12 Preti, "L'Arte della lana," 779-823.

9

236

PATRIMONIALISM

as the Venetian ones." About half of the Florentine output of wool was sent to Rome.13 What seems surprising is that the traditional strategy of production of quality cloth for export left unexplored the local market for cheaper, ordinary wool cloth. The gap was filled by the provincial towns, where the production of cheap cloth increased relatively in importance as the Florentine wool industry declined. In the eighteenth century the bal­ ance of production of wool had shifted almost entirely to provincial towns. According to a survey made in 1740, only 6 percent of wool shops operating in Tuscany were in the capital, and these produced only 13 percent of the total of wool cloths.14 Pontassieve, a small town near the capital with twelve wool shops, equaled the number of shops in Florence; and Prato, which traced the emergence of its modern tex­ tile industry to this period, had twice as many, although it still pro­ duced only two-thirds the number of cloths produced in Florence.15 THE SILK INDUSTRY

Protection in the textile industry was carried on partly through the guilds, but these operated as parts of the ducal system as a whole. The new bureaucracy provided opportunities for control that went well be­ yond what had been possible earlier for the guilds alone. While wool languished, the dukes made strenuous efforts to encourage the produc­ tion of silk, a product of little importance in fifteenth-century Florence. In the uncertain market of the late sixteenth century, the shift from wool to silk may have been a shrewd calculation, since silk of prime quality could be produced locally and raw materials did not have to be imported from great distances like fine wool. Precise figures for silk production are lacking for the sixteenth century. In 1561 the number of silk shops in Florence was less than the number of wool shops, but the number of matriculations in the Arte della Seta was increasing, and the annual output of silk cloths grew from some 2,000 at the end of the fif­ teenth century to 10,306 in 1608.16 Silk appealed to the inventiveness of 1J

ASF, Misc. Med., F J I I , ins. 2.

14

Preti, "L'Arte della lana."

15

For a further summary in the 1760s, see ASF, Seg. Gab., F 106.

'6 Corti and Da Silva, "Note sur la production de la soie," 309-11; Morelli, La seta fiorentina; ASF, Seg. Gab., F 106. On the silk industry at Pescia at the end of the sixteenth century, see J. Brown, In the Shadow of Florence, 74-78.

PART V

Florentines. Its production ultimately came to depend on machines and large, organized workshops like those of silk winders observed by Montaigne in 1581: "They have certain machines, which, by turning, one single woman can twist and turn five hundred spindles at once." 17 The organization of the industry rose above its basic guild regulation to become a mercantilistic enterprise encouraged by the dukes at every level, with full participation of the Florentine elite. The new organization of the silk industry began under Francesco I in the 15 70s and developed further under Ferdinando I at the end of the century. As in wool, a chief concern was procurement of raw materials, and an edict of 1576 began a determined effort to produce raw silk in Tuscany. It was decreed that within two years all proprietors in the Valdelsa—the Podesterie ofS. Giminiano, Colle, Poggibonsi, Barberino, Castelfiorentino, and Certaldo—were to plant four mulberry trees, on which silkworms feed, for every two oxen. In 1590 the injunction to plant trees was extended to proprietors along the main roads from Florence to Pisa and from Florence to Pistoia, which were to be lined with trees spaced every twenty feet. In 1594 the injunction to plant trees was extended to include river banks. Those who damaged trees by breaking their boughs were subject to legal action. Sanitary regulations required that frames of mulberry leaves and silkworms be placed out­ side of city gates, and ultimately a regulated market emerged in which mulberry leaves were sold by peasants to silk reelers in provincial towns. 18 The new guild statutes of the Arte della Seta in 1580 show the basic organization of the silk guild: two governing boards of seven deputies and six consuls, which were united into one in 1603, with three of the seven members, two senators and the Provveditore of the Arte, ap­ pointed by the duke. 19 Production of finished silk was restricted to Setaiuoli in Florence and Pisa, who were licensed to set marks on cloth. The botteghe residenti of Setaiuoli in Florence were supposed to be lo­ cated close to the guild hall. All maestri, compagni e ministri, were obliged to matriculate in the Arte della Seta. 20 But in reality, silk 17

Montaigne, Works, 1007.

18

Cantini, LegisIazione Toscana, via, 305-307; xra, 128-30, 187; xiv, 85-86, 238-43;

xxi, 12-14; xxii, 199-200. " ASF, Seg. Gab., F 106. 20

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, x, 7-139.

PATRIMONIALISM

emerged as a highly stratified industry in which a few manufacturers gave employment to a large number of low-level workers: reelers, winders, throwsters, and weavers of different types, who were sottoposti of the guild. In 1580 a tax was levied on guild masters for the num­ ber of subordinate lauoratori egarzoni they employed, but in a new reg­ ulation of 1588 this tax was abandoned.21 The crisis in wool did not make it difficult to recruit workers in silk, and there was little resistance to the employment of a larger number of subordinate workers by in­ dividual firms. To protect the interests of Florence, legislation was repeatedly di­ rected to the preliminary processes of preparing and reeling silk in the countryside, and a significant industry of raising cocoons and reeling and throwing silk developed in the smaller towns. In the 1650s about 70 percent of the silk used in Florence was produced natively. Contin­ ual legislative efforts assured that no unfinished silk passed outside of the state. Silk reeling and throwing frames could be set up in rural lo­ cations with the yearly license of the Conservatori of the Arte della Seta in Florence, and in 1605 silk drawers at Pescia were permitted to erect two mills powered by water. But the control exercised from Florence was such that reeling mills were uncommon in the Tuscan country­ side.22 In the legislation, reelers were viewed with utmost suspicion, particularly those of the Val di Nievole, near Pescia, who were within ! easy reach of the rival silk industry of the Republic of Lucca. The at­ tempt to prevent smuggling obliged provincial silk reelers to keep reg­ isters—quadernucci—to account for all cocoons received and all reeled silk dispatched, a subject of regulation in 1580, 1584, 1655, 1667, 1670, 1694, and 1701. The continual preoccupation of the authorities with this problem leads one to suspect that rural silk reelers were in fact not content with the controlled prices of Florence, and that they made con­ tinual efforts to gain better prices by selling silk elsewhere.23 The Flor­ entine work force was also carefully watched. Silk workers could not emigrate from Tuscany without specific license of the Arte, and it was 21

ASF, Seg. Gab., τ ιοό.

22

Ibid. There was a difference between Tuscany and the Po valley, which experienced

a considerable diffusion of rural silk mills during the seventeenth century; see Pom, Archeologie de la fabrique. 23

26.

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, x, 7-139, 333-35; xvm, 24-26; xx, 342-43; xxi, 123-

PART V

strictly forbidden to export "any instrument whatsoever for the weav­ ing, twisting, or spinning of silk."24 The Deputies of the Arte della Seta had jurisdiction not only over Se­ taiuoli and subordinate workers in silk, but also over tailors, mercers, shoemakers, and embroiderers to the extent they made use of silk, and over goldsmiths, gold beaters, and gold drawers. The inclusion of fine metals is an indication of the nature of the cloth produced for export: the silk industry, like wool, specialized in luxury fabrics, and particu­ larly in sumptuous, intricately woven heavy brocades often laced with gold and silver thread. The guild set meticulous standards for this type of work. Highest in quality were drappi with gold or velvet. Then came silk damask and brocades, and finally the plainer rasi, saie, ermisini, and taffeta.25 Regulations of 1604 and 1614 indicate a shift toward finer, lighter qualities of silk, but in 1621 the old specifications of 1580 were reaffirmed and remained in effect until the 1670s, when the same change took place in silk as in wool: the industry began to abandon tra­ ditional types of cloth in favor of styles that were more fashionable abroad.26 In 1686 production of plain cloths, rasi, was deregulated by the Arte, and permission to produce these cheaper qualities of silk was given to small producers: setaiuoli minuti, grossieri, and merciai. New kinds of common silks also made their appearance: "rasi all'Inghilese" in 1676 and "rasi alia Russiana" in 1688.27 Indeed, ducal protection gave the silk industry a large importance for the economies of Florence and the Tuscan countryside, a fact that has been insufficiently appreciated in historical assessments of the seven­ teenth-century crisis in Florentine textiles.28 Attention has been given chiefly to the precipitous decline of wool, but when evidence is added for silk (Table 12.1) the crisis of the textile industry seems less bleak. There was a decrease in silk production, parallel to wool, in the first decades of the seventeenth century, but a recovery after the 1640s. A change to production of new types of lighter cloths then led to a larger volume of production in the eighteenth century. Markets for Florentine silk were chiefly in Germany and Eastern Europe. In the early eight14

Ibid., x, 333-3SIbid., x, 7-139. 26 Ibid., xv, 9-12, 212-30. 27 ASF, Seg. Gab., F 106. " See Romano, "Tra xvi e xvn secolo." 2i

TABLE 12.1 W O O L A N D SILK P R O D U C T I O N IN FLORENCE,

1553-1760

(year total or mean for period) YEAR

PRODUCTION

EXPORT

Wool

Silk

Silk

For

(clothes)

(cloths)

cloth

Bologna

RAW SILK By sea

%

Tuscan

%

import

by weight

Total (libbre)

(libbre)

1553

14,700

1560

30,000

I56I

33,000

1571

28,492

1572

33,212

1589-16OO 1604-08

13,500 12,787 10,306

1608 1609-13

12,018

1614-18

9,927

1618

9,293

1619-23

8,200

1624-28

8,095

1628

9,769

1629-33

6,927

I634-38

6,600

I638

9,995

1639-43

6,141

1644-45

6,175

I647

10,276

1648

9,78I

1655

10,947

99,876*

.63F

•32

1659

1666

.70

.30

171,971

3,480 11,478

1674 I70I-IO

96,446

•73

•27

1711-20

113,287

.62

•38

1721-30

18,203

112,274

.64

.36

.67

.33

205,926

1731-40

16,460

107,933

.71

•29

.78

.22

183,504

1741-50

14,720

117,539

.68

•32

.78

.22

162,723

1751-57

15,103 •77

.23

210,063

2,000J

1704

1751-60

119,259

SOURCE. R o m a n o , " A Florence au x v i i e siécle"; Preti, " L ' A r t e della lana in T o s c a n a " , Malanima, II declimo dt un'economia

cittadina; ASF,

M i s c . M e d . , F 3 1 1 , 9 9 4 ; S e g r e t e r i a di Finanze anteriore al 1 7 8 8 ,

F 1 1 1 6 " M e m o r i e s o p r a le q u a t t r o a r t i " ; S e g . G a b . , F 1 0 6 . *

1651-60.

t A n additional 5 % was exported to Siena and the Marche. + Estimated for 1 2 months o f an 1 8 - m o n t h period.

PART V

eenth century 70 percent of the finished silk cloth, by weight, was ex­ ported toward the north, that is, overland by way of Bologna, while a relatively small amount was exported by sea toward the west, by way of Livorno. The silk industry also differed significantly in internal organization from the wool industry in that the relocation of patrician capital con­ tributed to a significant increase in the scale of organization. The mean registered capital of silk firms quadrupled between 1602-1604 an d 1693-95, while the mean capital of wool firms about doubled. But while the capital available to the silk industry grew, the total number of registered firms—Setaiuoli, Grossieri, and Merciai—never reached the number of wool firms at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The wool industry had accommodated medium-sized enterprises with rel­ atively small resources, the old type of organization in which produc­ tion was distributed among many small enterprises. Sometimes esti­ mates were made of the number of workers employed in wool and silk, which permit an assessment of scale in the mean number of workers per firm. In 1604, 2,555 males who were heads of households in the city were employed in wool. Since women and children were also com­ monly wool workers, about 12,800 individuals must have been em­ ployed in the wool industry. To these the estimate adds 2,000 others, chiefly spinners in the countryside. With ninety-eight wool shops, this made an average of 130 workers per firm, or 171 workers per firm counting city and countryside together. In 1663 there were 134 wool workers per firm, counting men, women, and children in the city alone.29 Silk, with its continual rewinding of reeled and doubled fila­ ments, and with the intricate processes of loom fixing and weaving of fabrics with complicated patterns, appears to have required a greater input of labor than wool, causing the big firms of the industry to or­ ganize on a grand scale. An estimate of the work force in silk in 1663, including men, women, and children, provides a total of 12,500 work­ ers in the city, an average of 240 workers per firm.30 With fewer firms and a slightly smaller output in the total number of cloths, silk em­ ployed about as many Florentines in the 1660s as wool had done in the first years of the century. A hundred years later, in 1758, the number of 25

Carmona, "Sull'economia Toscana," 43.

30

Ibid., 36-37.

PATRIMONIALISM

silk shops had increased through the appearance of more small produc­ ers, merciai, who were licensed to make more inexpensive plain cloth, while the number of larger firms had decreased. The number of work­ ers employed was the same as in the 1660s, although the mean number per firm had fallen to about 170.31 Thus with silk the patricians were able to marshal resources through the bureaucracy to help counter the late sixteenth-century crisis in wool. In techniques of production and scale of organization, the silk in­ dustry was ahead of the wool industry. But like wool, silk was nearly a Florentine monopoly. The industry was organized to supply a market outside of Tuscany, and it held the countryside captive as a producer of raw materials. There was little return of products back to the prov­ inces. More Tuscans undoubtedly clothed themselves with wool than with silk. Also, in Florence the large-scale production of silk brought about a deterioration in the working conditions of textile laborers. The very large number of women employed in the 1660s, a result probably of lowering of wages to cut production costs, can be taken as an index of this change. In a survey of 1663, 78 percent of adult silk weavers were women, as were 65 percent of throwsters, 37 percent of dyers, 47 per­ cent of loom fixers, and, apparently, all 8,004 silk winders, including 3,288 girls under age fifteen.32 Ducal protection made the silk industry the object of monopolies granted to producers of particular types of luxury cloth. But from 1686 onward the Arte della Seta also licensed small shops of merciai to produce lighter silk cloths, and the volume produced by small firms increased from 200-300 pieces yearly in the 1680s to 900-1,000 in the 1720s, and 1,400-1,500 in the 1750s, about ten percent of total silk production.33 Nonetheless, Florentine silk remained a protected luxury industry with a limited market. The advantages of protection did not continue through the eighteenth century. The silk industry declined rapidly when protection was abandoned in favor of free trade in the 1770s. Un­ protected, Florentine silk could not withstand the larger production and wider market that the French and northern Italian silk industries, 31

A S F , Seg. Gab., F 106. A S F , Misc. Med., F 994, "Registro di tutti gli sottoposti all'arte della seta di questa citta l'anno 1663." Further on women's employment, see Brown and Goodman, "Women and Industry in Florence," 73-80. 3 3 A S F , Segreteria di Finanze anteriore al 1788, F 1108, "Arte di seta." J2

PART V

which were more firmly based in rural industry, were able to command. The protected Florentine silk firms were unable to reorganize production on a larger scale around cheaper cloth for a mass market demanded by the beginning of industrialization. Thus ultimately the mercantilistic strategy of the patricians proved to be backward looking, static, and unresponsive to change. The Grain Trade and Tuscan Agriculture One problem confronted by patrician officeholders was the protection of Florentine industries. Other problems obliged them to look down the social hierarchy to crowds in the city's grain markets, and beyond the city walls to the countryside, their growing estates, Tuscan agriculture, and the annual harvest. There was a rise in cost of foodstuffs in the late sixteenth century, a growth in the number of urban and rural poor, and an increasing difficulty of provisioning Florence with grain in years of scarcity. Provisioning and the grain trade are recognized problems of this period that stimulated new areas of state activity.34 As the business interests of the patricians abroad decreased in importance, the fortunes of Florence inevitably became more tied to local resources, and this gave the problems of Tuscan agriculture a new significance.35 One might think the expansion of landed estates would have led to the development of a new interest in agriculture and to a spurt of rural development in response to needs of the urban market. But there appears to have been little progress in Tuscan agriculture during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a failure of development that was also related to the patricians' urban strategy. As landowners without much interest in farming, the patricians found it difficult to envision change in the traditional system of Tuscan agriculture. Instead they sought solutions to the problem of subsistence in the commercial traditions of Florence, and they confronted the problems of grain supply through the Mediterranean and Atlantic grain trade. Given the relative difficulty of increasing agricultural production and the growth of the population of the Duchy by nearly a third between the 1550s and 1760s, this policy had a short-term realism. But it did little to further the development of Tuscan agriculture. Import of grain 14 35

See Tilly, "Food Supply and Public Order," 380-455. For a discussion, see Quazza, La decadenza Italiana, 52-62, 188-95. 244

PATRIMONIAUSM

favored urban rather than rural interests. The elaborate system for pro­ visioning of Florence, which reached its full elaboration in the seven­ teenth century, shows both advantages and disadvantages of growing bureaucratic control. The provisioning legislation became an inflexible system, and in the eighteenth century it was an important item in the dismembering of the economic policy of the Medici system. Thus the problems of Tuscan agriculture merit attention in detail. For the patricians the provisioning of Florence was of importance be­ cause it involved two connected problems: the market for agricultural produce on one hand, and urban food supplies on the other. These were by no means new concerns. The Republic had taken elaborate precau­ tions to secure the grain supply and to control popular disturbances that might break out in times of scarcity. Sixteenth-century Florence received a stream of migrants from the countryside who crowded into parishes in the periphery of the city. From the 1570s onward the prob­ lem of subsistence was made more acute by inflation. Grain prices rose steadily in the 1570s to 1590s. Wages also rose, but with inflation real wages fell.36 Inflation and unemployment in the wool industry inevi­ tably put strains on Florentine institutions that assisted the poor. A re­ port to the Pratica Segreta of 1623 listed nine resources: alms from con­ vents of nuns and friars; alms distributed by the guilds, magistracies, and Monti; begging at masses; alms distributed by the hospitals; alms boxes in churches; and casual employment.37 A poorhouse was opened in 1621 to keep vagrants outside the city walls.38 The price rise of late sixteenth-century Europe resulted partly from the influx of American gold and silver, and partly from pressure of a growing population on limited agricultural resources, which bid up the price of grain, led to cultivation of marginal land, and increased chances 36

Parenti, Prime ricerche sulla rivoluzione dei prezzi, App. 1, "Prezzi delle merci e dei

servizi: Tabelle." The diary of Bastiano Arditi, a tailor, reports the price rise from the point of view of an artisan. InJuly of 1575 he wrote: "I am moved by zeal for the honor of our poor fatherland, city of Florence, [which is] come to such misery that nothing but woe is heard . . . [from] artisans . . . since all provisions are well above their power to earn. A staio of flour 3 Lire 10 Soldi, a soma of wine of the plain 16 or 17 Lire, a libra of veal reckoned 5 Soldi 4 Denari, a capon 4 Soldi 8 Denari, cheese reckoned 7 Soldi the libra, and everything else equally dear"; see Arditi, Diario di Firenze, 2-3, 50-51. 37

ASF, Pratica Segreta, F 180, "Regolamento della deputazione sopra 1 poveri biso-

gnosi del 1623." 3» Ibid.

PART V

of crop failure and serious famine. Tuscany was a region of relatively small grain production that depended on import in years of scarcity, when Italian cities all vied to import whatever surplus could be secured through the local Mediterranean grain trade. The result was a series of subsistence crises in the 1590s, which reoccurred into the 1650s. 39 A continuous series of grain prices does not exist for Florence for the whole period of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, but there are good series for Pisa, near the seacoast, and for Siena, farther inland (Figure 12. 1), which help to show the trend of prices. 40 Grain prices were high in the 1550s during the war between Florence and Siena, rel­ atively low in the 1560s and early 1570s, and then rose steadily in the 1580s, reaching extraordinary highs in the 1590s and between 1600 and 1610. The trend in Tuscany was similar to the trend elsewhere in Italy, and Italian prices in the 1580s to 1650s were noticeably higher than prices in northern Europe. After the 1650s, grain prices fell to a lower level, but they were still slightly above the European average. 41 Peaks in the Pisa-Siena series also reflected local problems—a rash of poor harvests in the 1590s, famine following the plague of 1630, and another cluster of harvest failures in the 1640s and 1650s. In this situation, provision of adequate supply of grain presented se­ rious problems for Florence and the other larger towns of the Duchy. In the eighteenth century the Abbondanza estimated grain consump­ tion at 12 Staia per head annually. 42 The ducal government made esti­ mates of the total grain harvest through the Vicari and Podesta, who drew up portate di raccolto at a local level. In 1603 the reports for the Duchy as a whole indicate a total harvest, net of seed, of 6,219,000 Staia, a shortfall even in this relatively good year of about 25 percent of 39 40

Aymard, Venise, 125-53. For Siena, see Parenti, Prezzi e mercato delgrano, 27-28. For Florence in the sixteenth

century, see Goldthwaite, "I prezzi del grano a Firenze," 5—36. Prices for Florence and other towns in the eighteenth century from ASF, Abbondanza, 79-88 (1703-68), Annona, 68-70 (1768-78). For Pisa, see Malanima, "Aspetti di mercato e prezzi del grano," 321-27. In Figure 12.1, prices for Siena have been adjusted to compensate for the Sienese Staio, which was slightly smaller than the Florentine Staio used in Pisa (Parenti, Prezzi e mercato del grano, 30-32). 41

Braudel and Spooner, "Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750," 470-71.

4i

ASF, Annona, F 90. This was 292 liters, similar to contemporary estimates at Ven­

ice; see Aymard, Venise, 17.

Siena

M e a n difference, Pisa/Siena

Florence

1546-1766

averages)

G r a n d mean difference, 1 5 4 6 - 1 7 6 6 ( 1 . 1 6 )

Pisa — • — • — G r a n d mean, P i s a - S i e n a (83 4 3 )

(five-year

I546-I766,

RATIO

(in Soldi of Lire)

A: GRAIN PRICES,

AND PISA/SIENA

G R A I N PRICES IN T U S C A N Y ,

F I G U R E12.1

PART V

estimated consumption.43 The lack was made up partly from lesser grains such as rye, vetch, and legumes; from vegetables; from subsist­ ence items such as chestnuts, which were staples of the Tuscan poor; and from imported grain. The urban population drained provisions away from the countryside and consumed the better qualities of grain. The seven larger cities of the Florentine Dominion accounted for 19 percent of the population, but required 28 percent of the grain harvest. Florence alone, with 10 percent of the Dominion's population, re­ quired 1$ percent. Provisioning was made still more difficult by the nature of Tuscan agriculture, which did not produce grain surpluses in the sixteenth cen­ tury, a problem related to its rough terrain and the difficulty of inten­ sive cultivation. Grain was produced in fields that also contained vines and olives and was sown in three-course rotation: two grain courses followed by one of fallow. A few regions along the Arno, such as the Val di Chiana near Arezzo, or the Val di Nievole near Pescia, had rela­ tively higher yields, but such regions were exceptional. In the State of Siena, the valley of the Ombrone in the Maremma between Siena and the sea was a potentially good grain region, but it was only partly cul­ tivated in the sixteenth century. It was also a malarial region and was used chiefly for winter pasture of herds of cattle and sheep brought down from summer pastures in the Apennines. In this varied terrain much of the harvest consisted of lesser grains: rye, barley, beans, mix­ tures of grain, rye and vetch, and chestnuts. An English observer of the 1590s, Robert Dallington, wrote of Tuscan grain: "It is very much in kind and very little in quantity, whereof most years . . . they are sup­ plied out of other places, such as Sicilia, Sardegnia, and sometimes England and the East countries: they have of wheat more than either rye or barley, yet of neither sufficient. As for their Saggina, Panico, Milio, Surgo Turco, and such like, they are fine names, but make but coarse meal and bread only for the poorest sort."44 To mitigate the effects of scarcity, the Republic had evolved a system of strict market controls that continued under the Duchy through the magistracy of the Abbondanza, which provided for grain, and the Grascia, which provided for meat and other foodstuffs. The aims of regulation were threefold. First was the effort to assure that all available 43

Licata, "II problema del grano," 417-19.

44

Dallington, A Survey of the Great Duke's State of Tuscany, 35-36.

PATRIMONIALISM

supplies remained within the state and were available to meet local needs. Shipment of grain was subject to license and internal tolls, and declarations of the harvest were intended to assure that producers brought local supplies to the markets. Second was the effort to dis­ courage speculation in grain, and artificial rises in price caused by hoarding, through prohibition of what was called incetto, or trade by middlemen. Third was the effort to assure a supply of bread to the ur­ ban population in times of need. The provisioning magistracies bought grain, had it ground by licensed millers, and released it to bakers on whom distribution of a type of bread called Pan Ducale ultimately de­ pended. In practice the system operated in a complex manner. In Florence, the Abbondanza did not have jurisdiction over the entire Florentine Dominion. It was concerned directly only with the Florentine Contado. The Romagna, Casentino, Montagna di Pistoia, Val di Nievole, Livorno, Pisa, and the entire State of Siena were treated as independent regions, had their own provisioning magistracies, and were expected to be self-sufficient.45 Still, Florence received preference through a scaling of priorities. For instance, in March of 1591, a year of scarcity, prices were set by decree to bring grain to market and particularly to supply the capital. The highest ceiling was set for Florence where grain could not exceed 8 Lire per Staio; at Pistoia, Pescia, Arezzo, and Cortona the ceiling was 7 Lire; at Pisa and Livorno 6 Lire, 6 Soldi.46 The State of Siena had its own provisioning legislation, its own Abbondanza, and the greatest degree of autonomy. At the end of the sixteenth century Siena had a larger per capita grain harvest than the territory of Florence. In addition, by ancient privilege, export of grain by sea was permitted by license from the Maremma.47 In Florence the Abbondanza became a large factor in the grain trade. Robert Dallington, who was unaccustomed to such massive controls in England, described its operation as follows: After the raccolta (harvest) when wheate is at the cheapest, a note is taken of every mans particular croppe, how much he hath, what will seed his ground, and serve his house, the rest the officers [of the Abbondanza] will buy at the 45

Note the regulation of local trade in Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, VII, 90-93; vm,

204-10. 46 Ibid., xiii, 204-10. 47

Licata, "Problema del grano," 418.

PART V

price of the market. He is not (as I take it) directly forced to sell it, but a Bando is sent forth, that no [middle] man shall buy, and so by consequent, because he must need have money, with an unwilling willingness he is content they shall have it. This is bought under pretense to have the cities well stored. . . . It was reported in the magazzini [storehouses] at Pisa when I was there, there was no less than one hundred and fifty thousand Staia.48

Agents of the Abbondanza bought grain during the summer chiefly from small holders unable to wait for higher prices of the winter and spring, while private marketing of grain by larger producers proceeded throughout the year. In years of good harvest, prices to bakers were set slightly higher than the current price of grain, so that it was in the in­ terest of consumers to buy grain on the open market or to buy bread from bakers at ordinary prices, until the annual peak in prices was reached in the spring. In bad years what was called the spiano operated: the Abbondanza sold grain to bakers at relatively lower prices, con­ sumers bought from bakers, and there was negotiation between the Abbondanza and the bakers about the quality and weight of the Pan Ducale. 49 This system was not without its difficulties. Adequate stor­ age was difficult to obtain, so that in a succession of good harvests the stores of the Abbondanza rotted. At the other extreme, a succession of bad harvests produced real dearth and required large sums for import of grain from abroad. But the greatest problem of regulation was that the system of con­ trols depressed the agricultural market, and in the long run decreased incentives to increase production. Independent small holders had no way to exercise leverage on prices, while larger patrician landowners found ways to profit from the system, and their interests and the op­ eration of the Abbondanza were in underlying opposition. The mag­ istracy suspected them of conspiring to withhold grain from the mar­ ket to make a larger profit. In years of scarcity proprietors were also forced to sell grain and buy from the bakers. There was little difference of procedure between Florence and Siena. "There is another inconven­ ience," wrote Dallington in defense of landowners, 48 45

Dalhngton, A Survey of the Great Duke's State of Tuscany, 38. On the general operation of the Abbondanza, see Ginon, "Relazione dell'Abbon-

danza di Firenze dall' anno 1301 al 1747," in ASF, Abbondanza delle Finanze, F 2; Parenti, Prezzi e mercato delgrano, 43-71.

PATRIMONIALISM

wherein a man may not serve himself of his owne, which had it not been told me by a Gentleman Sanese [of Siena] of good credit, I should hardly have be­ lieved. . . . Ifa gentleman of Siena have a Villa in the territory of Montalcino, near by, and therein good store of wheat to serve his turn for the maintenance of his house in Siena . . . notwithstanding he cannot be suffered to bring ofhis owne to his house, but must there take of the Great Duke to have ofhis provi­ sion. How hurtful these monopolies and ingrossings [by the duke] are the laws made against them in well governed states doe witnesse."5"

As prices rose in the 1570s, the problems of the Abbondanza in­ creased. Portate delgrano, local reports made after the harvest, began to be made in 1569. The prohibitions on export were renewed in 1571, 1572, 1588, 1590, and 1591.51 Export of grain from the Maremma of Siena was interrupted in 1580 and 1587, in 1588 the tax on export was raised, and in 1591-98 and 1604-1607 export was again prohibited. Grain was imported from nearby ports through Livorno and Pisa in the 1570s and 1580s, but then another serious failure of the harvest in 1590 required further involvement of the ducal state. It is significant that the extraordinary measures of 1590 were taken by Ferdinando I who was well tuned to patrician commercial interests. In the last decades of the sixteenth century English and Dutch ships penetrated into Mediterranean ports carrying woolens, which com­ peted with Italian textiles, and north European grain, which could be supplied at prices well below those current in Italy.52 The first large shipments of Baltic grain to Tuscany date from December 1590. The patrician merchant Francesco Ximines at Hamburg was an agent in this arrangement, as were Riccardo Riccardi and Nero Giraldi, who were sent by the duke to procure grain at Danzig. Only three of the eight grain ships departing from the Baltic in 1590 arrived safely at Livorno, but a second fleet of Dutch ships made the transit in 1591, and in De­ cember 1592 a third fleet departed. Large-scale provision of Baltic grain was a recourse of relatively short duration in 1590-94, 1596-97, and 1606-1608.53 But the measures taken in these years demonstrated the advantages that could result from contact between Mediterranean and Atlantic shipping, and in the seventeenth century import of grain s°

Dallington, A Survey of the Great Duke's State of Tuscany, 38-39.

" Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, vi, 364; vm, 48-49; xn, 122-24; 52

Braudel and Romano, Naivres et marchandises, 50-51, 106.

53

Aymard, Venise, 156-65.

XIII > I( 5o,

237-40.

PART V

through Livorno appears to have been a usual recourse in years of scar­ city. In 1590-91, 245,000 Staia of Baltic grain reached the port; 693,000 Staia arrived in 1591-92, and 820,000 Staia in 1592-93.54 Not all this grain was destined for Florence, but the importance of import is clear when one considers that the provision in 1592-93 was 13 percent of the Tuscan harvest at the 1603 level, and nearly enough for a whole year's provisioning of Florence. But the efforts of Ferdinando I to increase the grain supply were not limited to importing grain. Between the 1590s and 1630s a parallel, though less successful, attempt was made to increase productivity of the local harvest. Valleys of the Arno contained low-lying marshy areas, which if drained could provide good farmland. The duke pro­ moted drainage of land in the Val di Chiana above Arezzo, in the lower Arno valley, in the territory of Pisa, and in the Maremma of Siena. Peasant families were settled in the Maremma near Savona. Then in 1597, the duke created a commission of senators to make landowners cultivate wastelands and undertake improvements to employ the rural poor. But these measures were insufficient to relieve the basic depend­ ence of seventeenth-century Tuscany on imported grain. Given the rel­ ative density of cultivation, an increase of agricultural productivity would have required intensive, rather then merely extensive, develop­ ment through irrigation, fertilizing, and planting new crops.55 The growing population may have encouraged innovation of more inten­ sive methods in response to rising prices. In a not entirely dissimilar sit­ uation, agricultural improvement took place in Holland during the sev­ enteenth century as small farmers drained land, improved livestock and dairy farming, and ultimately developed a profitable trade in garden crops.56 Something similar may also have taken place in sixteenth-cen­ tury Lombardy before the collapse of its rural economy caused by Spanish administration and devastation in the Thirty Years' War.57 But the patricians' traditional habits of estate management and the small initiative allowed to tenants were impediments to agricultural improvement partly because of the deeply established system of sharecropping on estates. The estates of the Riccardi provide an example of " Braudel and Romano, Navires et marchandises, 117. 55

Boserup, Conditions of Agricultural Growth, 15-22.

s6

De Vries, Dutch Rural Economy, 119-73.

" Sella, Crisis and Continuity, 11-16.

PATRIMONIALISM

the problems. From the vast holdings of this family, summary infor­ mation is available about crops for five Fattorie in the 1640s: Castelpulci, Campi and S. Cristofano near Florence, and Cava and Villa Saletta in the territory of Pisa—together some 2,000 hectares of land. The cumulative size of the Riccardi estates gives an entirely false impression of the scale and nature of cultivation. The five Fattorie contained 118 Poderi, which averaged in size from 20-22 hectares at Villa Saletta and Cava to only 9-12 hectares at Castel Pulci and Campi. Individual Po­ deri were still further fragmented with small fields of only one or two hectares or less. The Poderi were worked in the interests of the propri­ etor by mezzadri, or sharecroppers, under the direction of estate agents, and the Riccardi Fattorie probably supported well over a thousand per­ sons in peasant households. Sharecropping was nearly universal. Less than 3 percent of the Riccardi gross landed revenue in the 1640s came from land leased out for money rents.58 Sharecropping had become diffused in the Florentine Contado dur­ ing the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when the system offered tenants advantages of land, a farm house, and half of seed, in exchange for half of the crop, a variable rent in kind that cushioned against crop failure.59 But in time the condition of sharecroppers worsened, leaving little margin above subsistence and forcing tenants to become indebted for advances of grain or rye. Sharecroppers were forbidden to work in­ dependently away from the Podere, although indebtedness increased the burden of work services owed to the proprietor. Ownership of live­ stock, potentially a cash item, was usually reserved for the proprietor and was accounted for separately from the other products. Tenants were also constrained by the conventionally determined system of cul­ tivation. The Riccardi Fattorie produced only three items in the 1640s—grain, wine, and oil—which made up 66 percent of gross rev­ enue. Lesser grains and legumes—rye, vetch, barley, oats, millet, beans—accounted for an additional 15 percent; only 5-6 percent came from livestock. All Poderi of the Fattorie replicated this distribution. Vines and olive trees grew in rows along the sides of wheat fields, a uni­ formity that made it difficult to introduce new crops or increase yields.60 s8

ASF, Carte Riccardi,

59

Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs families, 268-71.

60

Giorgetti, Contadinieproprietari nell'ltalia moderna; McArdle, Altopascio.

F

112, "Debitori e creditori," 1626-91.

PART V

Sharecropping was an impediment to agricultural improvement be­ cause of the scarce independence and resources of tenants, a group on which agricultural development depended heavily in other parts of Eu­ rope. 61 Undoubtedly there was a slow trend of improvement in the Tuscan countryside throughout the seventeenth century. There was drainage of marshland on ducal and private estates through colmate, a process of diking to permit river silt to raise the land level and create new fields. 62 But besides draining, clearing of fields, and regrouping of fields for more convenient cultivation, patrician landlords gave little at­ tention to improving the productivity of their estates. The work of a commission established by Ferdinando I in 1597 to en­ courage cultivation gives some indication of the kinds of improve­ ments considered appropriate. The aim was to alleviate rural unem­ ployment by inducing proprietors to bring uncultivated land into cultivation and employ peasants in part-time work. This effort was re­ newed in 1620 and in 1630, when the senators of the commission were able to elicit what seemed on paper to be a sizeable response from the Florentine elite: in 1620 the commission received pledges of 47,000 Scudi to be spent on estate improvements, and in 1630 it received 399 pledges for a total of 50,000 Scudi. These were mostly small sums of 50-150 Scudi, but there were also some large offers, like that of the Riccardi for 560 Scudi, about 5 percent of their net landed income. But the proposed improvements were traditional items of estate maintenance. The emphasis was on vines and olive trees rather than on field crops or livestock. The Guicciardini listed nine Poderi where they planned to spend 35 Scudi for "vines, fruit trees, and walls." The Albertilisted five Poderi where they planned to spend 40 Scudi for "vines, olives, and dry walls," and two others where they planned to spend 10 Scudi for "vines and olives." The Salviati promised "ditches for vines and fruit trees." 63 This matches the emphasis of Florentine treatises on agriculture in this period that include Bernardo Davanzati's Coltivazione delle viti e delli alberi of 1579, and Vitale Magazzini's Coltivazione Toscana of 1630. The agrarian literature imitated classical writers such as Palladino, Colu61

Boserup, Conditions of Agricultural Growth, 97.

62

Repetti, Dizionario, iv, iB. The colmate at Altopascio are described in McArdle, Al-

topascio, 66—76. 63

ASF, Pratica Segreta, F 179 "Regolamento sopra i l negozio delle coltivazioni del

1621."

PATRIMONIALISM

mella, and Varro, and promoted the type of garden cultivation that had typified ancient Roman villas: vines, olives, fruit trees, and a large va­ riety of vegetables.®4 There was little discussion of cereals or livestock, and no discussion at all of crop coursing or soil replenishment. There may have been some shift during the seventeenth century from higher to lower qualities of grains for higher yields—particularly to rye in the form of Saggina, a mixture of rye, vetch, and wheat—but the basic field crop continued to be wheat.65 Little rice was grown in Tuscany, and Indian corn seems not to have been introduced until nearly 1700. It was not until the late eighteenth century when agrarian academies helped to create an interest for North European techniques of intensive farming that patrician landowners gradually adopted more systematic crop rotation and fodder crops, so that output began to increase.66 The commission on cultivation did not reappear after the plague of 1630. Grain prices rose to new highs in the 1630s and 1640s, but then fell in the 1650s and remained low for the rest of the century. By reduc­ ing population in the short term by some 18 percent in the Florentine Dominion, the plague undoubtedly mitigated the surface problem of rural unemployment, which the commission on cultivation was sup­ posed to alleviate. The mid-seventeenth century was a period of slow population growth. At the ducal estate of Altopascio near Fucecchio, extensive improvements were made in the sixteenth century through the clearing of land and colmate, the new farms permitting an influx of young tenants to the estate and causing a local growth of population. But in the seventeenth century the clearings stopped. Among tenants, the relative shortage of farms caused an increase in marriage age, celi­ bacy, more complexity of households, and a net out-migration of sin­ gle people who were unable to establish themselves on the estate.67 A rise in marriage age has been observed in other rural parishes of this pe­ riod.68 Sharecropping prevented division of holdings, but kept the 64

Fussell, Classical Tradition, 125; Davanzati, "Toscana Coltivazione"; Magazzini, Coltivazione Toscana. 6s McArdle, Altopascio, 91. 66 On this and the early nineteenth-century discussion, see Pazzagli, L'agricoltura To­ scana, passim. 67 McArdle, Altopascio, 41-65. 68 Corsini, "Ricerche di demografia storica," 356-79.

PART V

standard of living near subsistence without permitting development of new productive capacities. With lower prices after the 1650s and little increase in output, profits from estates remained low. One might think this would have led to an effort by landowners to block import of grain in order to support prices on the local market; but grain was imported in years of scarcity, so im­ port and high prices went hand in hand. Still, low prices were a further disincentive to estate improvement. Net revenue from the five Riccardi Fattorie was 10,042 Scudi in 1645-52, at a time ofhigh prices, and 9,412 Scudiin 1690-1719 and 8,837 Scudi in !725-36, at times oflow prices.69 Unrelieved harvesting made grain yields fall in some places. At a Fattoria of the Order of St. Stephen in the Val d'Elsa the yield for wheat was 4.6 in the 1580s, 4.2 in the 1630s, 4.3 in the 1640s, and 3.8 in the 1650s.70 At the ducal Fattoria of Altopascio, the yields were 6.6 in 1600-50, 6.8 in 1666-94, and 5.7 in 1695-1729.71 At a Fattoria of the monastery of Passignano in the Val di Pesa, yields were 8.1 in 1611-44, 6.2 in 1656-1700, and 6.7 in 1701-50.72 The crisis of agricultural production was the most serious in the State of Siena, where total population remained stable in the late sixteenth century but then decreased absolutely by 20 percent between the 1590s and 1750s. Siena derived little benefit from the protection the ducal re­ gime gave to Florence. Separated by tolls and trade barriers from Livorno and the sea, the industries of Siena became reduced to small pro­ ducers of poor-quality wool and silk. In the countryside the fall in population led to abandonment of farms, a restriction of acreage sown, and despite potential resources, a decrease of the grain harvest by a fifth between the 1590s and 1770s.73 In the 1680s an English traveler, Bishop Burnet, thought the Tuscan countryside was generally depopulated: "In many places the soil is quite neglected for want of hands to cultivate it, and in other places where there are more people, they look so poor, Malamma, I Riecardi, 223. Gregori, "Un azienda agricola," 907-908. 71 McArdle, Altopascio, 95. 72 Conti, La formazione delta struttura agraria moderna, 1, 359. 73 According to the portate del raccolto, the grain harvest of the State of Siena m the pe­ riod 1770-76 averaged only 1,605,122 staia yearly, while in 1593-1609 it had averaged 2,034,216 staia (84,759 mogg'a)· See ASF, Seg. Gab., F 98; Licata, "Problema del grano," 70

417·

PATRIMONIALISM

and their houses are such miserable ruins, that it is scarce accountable how there should be so much poverty in so rich a country." Traveling through Siena, he added: "All the way from Florence the Great Duke's country looked so sad that I concluded it must be the most dispeopled of all Italy." But he found conditions still worse in the Campagna as he neared Rome.74 In all this, an underlying problem was created by the system of con­ trols that fragmented the internal market in an attempt to secure the ur­ ban supply of grain. There was little incentive to increase the harvest at Siena because the Sienese countryside supplied a limited and dwindling local market. A general European phenomenon of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries was a leveling off of prices from region to region as the mechanisms of the international market developed. Baltic grain became relatively less expensive in the Mediterranean, and grain prices in the Hapsburg Empire drew closer to those of the Adriatic.75 Grain prices in Tuscany were closer to the European mean at the beginning of the eighteenth century than they had been at the end of the sixteenth; within the Duchy, however, regulation of the grain trade produced an opposite effect by increasing the difference in price from region to re­ gion, particularly between consuming and producing regions, and be­ tween Florence and Siena. One can see the effect of regulation by studying Figure 12. i, which compares mean prices of grain at Pisa and Siena in five-year periods from the 1550s to the 1760s. This comparison serves as an index of the degree to which the price of grain at Pisa, which was in the general area of Florentine regulation, was higher than the price at Siena. For the pe­ riod as a whole, prices at Pisa were 18 percent above those at Siena. Continuous series for other cities in the Florentine state—Florence, Livorno, Arezzo—are not available until the eighteenth century, but at that time grain prices at Pisa, Livorno, and Florence were relatively high and close together, while prices at Arezzo in the grain-producing region of the upper Arno were lower and closer to prices at Siena.76 The control of internal trade in grain, with the exception of grain imported 74

Burnet, Some letters containing an account, 187, 192.

75

Braudel and Spooner, "Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750," 470-71, 473.

76

Note the comparative ten-year averages in Parenti, Prezzi e mercato del grano, 229.

Prices for Florence and other towns m the eighteenth century are from ASF, Abbondanza, 79-88 (1703-1768), Annona, 68-70 (1768-78).

PART V

through Livorno that went to Pisa and Florence, created a situation in which each of these places depended chiefly on local supply. Thus transport costs were probably not the decisive cause of the differential of prices. The fragmentation of the market is shown by the fact that the difference between Pisa and Siena increased through time. In the six­ teenth century, prices at Siena and Pisa were close together and parallel in their common response to variations in the harvest from year to year. But from the 1590s onward, and particularly after the 1620s, a new pat­ tern emerged: the two series continued to respond to common varia­ tion in the harvest, but prices at Pisa became notably higher than prices at Siena, and the index of Pisa to Siena became inversely correlated to common highs and lows. That is, when prices were low at both Pisa and Siena, the difference of price between the two places tended to be greatest, but when prices were high at both places the difference be­ came less. Imperfect operation of the market is indicated by the grow­ ing difference of price levels, while the emergency controls and import of grain brought prices closer together in years of harvest failure and dearth. Import of grain through Livorno, growing population in the Flor­ entine Dominion, and decrease of population at Siena probably all af­ fected the differential of prices. But it is clear that the grain strategy of the regime depended on ability to import grain in years of scarcity and on control of distribution, rather than on efforts to increase local pro­ duction. The evolution of the provisioning legislation reflects this con­ cern. After the famine of 1647-50 the magistracy of the Abbondanza in Florence was reorganized with six permanent Protettori who were given broader powers to buy "grain in our states and abroad"; it was also given the faculty of trading in bills of exchange to facilitate foreign payments.77 The operation of the Abbondanza was supposed to be selffinancing in that the magistracy was expected to buy grain cheap and sell it dear, but provision of grain abroad in years of scarcity required an extraordinary outlay of funds. The Abbondanza was assigned funds from the Monte di Pieta to pay for grain imported after the plague of 1630, and further funds were advanced by the duke from the Depositeria Generale for the importation of grain in 1649-50. In a short-term crisis of 1671-72 a balance sheet of the Abbondanza reported a provi77

Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, XVII, 371-75.

PATRIMONIALISM

sion of 348,000 Staia of grain and rye out of the 750,000 Staia the magistracy thought would be needed before the new harvest. Six percent of the amount obtained came from stores from the previous year, 34 percent came from merchants at Livorno, 27 percent had been ordered from Amsterdam, and 18 percent came from Marseilles; the rest came from unidentified sellers.78 At eighteenth-century levels 750,000 Staia was about 12 percent of the total grain harvest of the Duchy in a normal year. But in 1671 the harvest was short 20 percent, requiring a temporary outlay of some 459,000 Scudi at current prices. During better harvests there was less need to import grain. Later, between 1750 and 1763, years of reasonably good harvests, an average of 208,000 Staia was imported annually, 3 percent of the harvest in these years.79 With what seems to have been little hope of increasing the local harvest, and with the cost of provisioning, one can understand the severity of measures adopted to control distribution when the provisioning legislation was reenacted and codified in 1697. In theory all export of "grano, biade, farina, pane, castagne, legumi, risi, lupini, lino seme" was prohibited, and guards and searches were ordered for three miles inside of all borders to intercept smugglers. The authority of the provisioning magistracies was reinforced through renewed prohibition of trade by unlicensed farinaioli, biadaioli, or middlemen of any sort. The regulations for licensing and control of bakers were reenacted, and innkeepers were forbidden to sell any other than Pan Ducale produced by licensed bakers. It was even forbidden within twenty miles of Florence to transport grain in any direction except toward the city.8o But enforcing these regulations created problems, and the Abbondanza of the early eighteenth century found itself in a difficult situation. An administrative history of the magistracy contains a litany of problems for financing the operation of procuring grain on one hand, and of complaints of bakers, proprietors, and other interests at odds with the magistracy on the other. After the harsh winter of 1709 the magistracy received funds from the Depositeria Generale to buy grain at Livorno, but these proved to be insufficient, and two of the Protettori were obliged to advance more out of pocket as a loan. In 1712 there ?8 ASF, Misc. Med., F 240. ™ ASF, Seg. Gab., F98. 80 Cantini, Legislazione Toscana, xxi, 14-30. 259

PART V

were complaints from Florentine bakers charged with the production of Pan Ducale that better-quality bread was being smuggled into the city from "Prato, Sesto, and other places." In 1713, seven hundred shares of the Monte Redimibile were assigned to the Abbondanza for foreign provision of grain. In 1716 grain was procured from the Baltic by way of London, but scarcity still required reduction in the weight of bread by bakers, and the agents of the Abbondanza were hard pressed to buy grain at Livorno before arrival of agents of the Pope from the provisioning magistracy of Rome. In 1718 proprietors at Pisa com­ plained that the price of bread at Livorno had been set too low, lower­ ing local prices excessively to their great injury. Landholders were sus­ pected of evading the system of controls. "Since their income from grain is paid in kind, in legal. . . and often other illegal ways they trade in grain, artfully operating to raise the price to their own advantage. The Abbondanza, to the contrary, takes every care to lower the price to the advantage of the people." In 1724 a dry summer and lack of water in the rivers produced a crisis in milling of grain, and the Abbondanza was criticized for setting up an ineffective mulino a cavallo in an attempt to alleviate the problem. The year 1728 brought more complaints from bakers; this time they wanted a reduction in the weight of bread. In ad­ dition, the administration of the Abbondanza was openly corrupt. A series of incidents involving private gain by officials culminated in a scandal discovered by the regents for Francis Stephen of Lorraine in 1747, which involved Senators Braccio Degli Alberti and Francesco Gaetani, two of the Protettori, and Cavaliere Vincenzo Borgherini, one of the Provveditori. Of the 96,000 Staia of grain that were supposed to be in one storehouse, only 1,624 could be found. In the previous years these officials, whose operation was revealed in their trial before the Otto di Guardia, had defrauded by various means: appropriating grain, falsifying accounts with bakers, and pocketing sums from debtors to the magistracy. 81 Such issues were confronted by the eighteenth-century reforms. Thus the bureaucracy was involved at every level in the ducal at­ tempt to regulate the Tuscan economy. In interpreting the economic decline of Italy, emphasis is often given to such general factors as the high production costs of textiles and the shift of centers of banking and 81

ASF, Abbondanza delle Finanze, F 2; Waquet, De la conuption, 43-52.

PATRIMONIALISM

trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, which presumably relo­ cated the Italian economy from an older core of industrial and com­ mercial activity to a periphery of consumption and supply of materials to new proto-industrial economies of the north. But emphasis on such general factors in the economic environment leads one to ignore the strength and relative success of a defensive countermovement exercised by mercantile interests through the governments of Italian states. A positive effect of bureaucratic control was in the Florentine silk indus­ try, which could hardly have continued with such relative success into the eighteenth century had it not been for the mercantile protection of the ducal government. Similarly, grain scarcity would have had far more serious effects in Tuscan cities without the controls exercised by the Abbondanza and the intervention of the ducal government to im­ port grain. But the protective policy of the ducal state clearly also had the negative effects of freezing administration inflexibly into a tradi­ tional mold by a bureaucracy dominated by urban interests of a com­ munal elite, limiting the adaptive abilities of the regime. In the eight­ eenth century, however, this situation began to change through a remaking of the bureaucracy and a new direction in policy initiated by the Hapsburg-Lorraine.

PART VI T H E R E M A K I N G OF BUREAUCRACY

IN THE

CENTURY BY

THE

EIGHTEENTH THE

HAPSBURG-LORRAINE

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN, 1737-65

Thus far we have followed the patricians from the fifteenth-century Re­ public into the offices of the Medici bureaucracy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It remains to trace their progress through the Hapsburg reforms of the eighteenth century when the Tuscan state ac­ quired the form it preserved until it was absorbed by the unified Italian monarchy in i860. We must also begin to assess what officeholding meant to the patricians, something difficult to do in terms of theories of the state that were current at the time, partly because Florentines wrote little about politics. In contemporary political thought, when an elite had an independent institutionalized relationship to political power, as in the English Parliament, or even a partly institutionalized relationship, as through the sale and inheritance of offices in France, the state was sometimes thought of as a mixed monarchy combining mo­ narchical and aristocratic elements. This was one of the ideals of eight­ eenth-century liberalism as represented by Locke and Montesquieu, who held that a balance of power among different groups served as a check against the ruler's potential despotism. In this view preservation of liberty required a corporative solidarity of the elite to create and a balance between ruler and ruled. But at princely courts, like that of Tuscany, institutions and social groups interacted in a different way. The patricians' conquest of the du­ cal bureaucracy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had been en­ hanced by no protective guarantees. One might argue that at the mo­ ment of establishment of the Duchy a balance was foreseen between the duke and his Ministri, on one hand, and the Senate and Council of 200 on the other, like the balance between doge and councils that was thought to preserve the liberty of Venice. But in practice the Florentine Senate had no such autonomy. The place of patricians of the eighteenth century was secured by little more than the ducal policy of granting of-

P A R T VI

fices to nobles. The dukes had absolute and undivided authority, transforming the patricians from Republican oligarchs into dependents of the ducal Court. It is important to keep this relationship in mind when considering developments of the eighteenth century, which began with the extinction of the Medici in 1737 and ended with the annexation of Tuscany to the unified Italian monarchy in i860. In the eighteenth century a new transition confronted the Florentine elite, that is, the beginnings of absorption of the Duchy into a larger political entity with its center outside of Tuscany. The Medici had preserved the autonomy of the ducal state, but this autonomy was undermined in 1737 when Tuscany became attached to the Hapsburg Empire as the new possession of Francis Stephen, former duke of Lorraine, the consort of Maria Theresa. In the decades that followed, the new regime carried out a thorough reorganization of the bureaucracy, which ended the patricians' domination of offices. Through the eighteenth-century reforms the influence of the elite sharply decreased, the economic policies that had favored Florence changed, new groups gained access to offices, procedures of administration were rationalized, and the politics of the patricians gradually began to take a new direction. In confronting this crisis they continued at first to pursue tactics acquired under the Medici. There was no direct confrontation with Vienna. Instead, the patricians protected their interests through manipulation behind the scenes, while local political opinion was gradually reorientated toward the mainstream of European developments in response to the Enlightenment. The New Political Arrangements under the Regency The Austrian garrison, which arrived in January of 1737, and the agents for Francis Stephen, who was crowned emperor as Francis I in 1745, made clear that the status of Florence as capital would change. The treaties had stipulated that Tuscany would not become an integral part of the Hapsburg possessions. But it was clear that Francis Stephen would not reside in Florence, and the degree of Florence's independence from Vienna remained disputable. The first agents of the new regime were the prince of Beauveau-Craon, a Lorrainese noble in the service of Francis Stephen, and the Austrian general Wachtendronck. In August of 1738 they were joined by Count Emanuele Richecourt, another Lorrainese functionary from Nancy. They saw to the dismissal of the 266

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

Medici Court, including the sale of linen, draperies, and cooking pots from the ducal household. In the absence of the new duke, Tuscany was to be governed by a Council of Regency, which consisted initially of Craon, Wachtendronck, and Marchese Carlo Rinuccini (the Segretario di Guerra of the last Medici). Richeeourt also became a member of this council, while the diplomatic representative of the Medici at Vienna, Marchese Matteo Bartolommei, and the secretary of the Tratte and Riformagioni, Marehese Carlo Ginori, were named councillors of state. In 1739 the council was reorganized into three councils: a Council of State under Craon, a Council of Finance under Richecourt, and a Council of War under Rinuccini. They reported to what was called the Council of Tus­ cany in Vienna. There were further changes after 1739. Richecourt, who was strongly supported from Vienna, gradually became the cen­ tral figure of importance. His chief opponent was Senator Carlo Gi­ nori, who had large ambitions for greater influence. The contest was partially resolved in 1746 when Richecourt procured the appointment of Ginori as governor of Livorno. When Craon was recalled to Vienna in 1749 the councils of war and finance were suppressed so that Riche­ court, as president of the Council of Regency, had full authority. He remained until 1757, when he was replaced by Marchese Antonio Botta-Adorno, a career diplomat who had formerly been the Austrian commander at Genova, ambassador in Russia, and luogotenente in Bel­ gium. The Regency continued until 1765, when a younger son of Fran­ cis Stephen and Maria Theresa, Peter Leopold, was sent to Florence as Grand Duke. Historians of eighteenth-century Tuscany have generally given little attention to the years of the Regency and have focused their attention on the reign of Peter Leopold later in the century, when the bulk of new legislation was enacted. However, it is clear that the Regency was very important in accomplishing the political transition to the new regime. The 1740s to 1760s marked a significant change of personnel in the bu­ reaucracy, the first measures of reform, and a gradual reorientation of opinion in favor of the new regime in the context of the early Enlight­ enment. Almost all of the collaborators in the Leopoldine reforms later in the century entered office before 1765, and the reform movement was accomplished with little difficulty partly because the men ap­ pointed to office under the Regency were favorable to change.

PART VI

The new men fell roughly into three groups. The first consisted of Lorrainers and functionaries from Vienna who were employed in the upper councils of state or in the administration of the finances under the tax farm. But foreigners were relatively few, only n of the 103 families registered as nobles in the Libri di Oro during the 1750s and 1760s were Lorrainers or Austrians employed in the bureaucracy. Dominique Charles Poirot de la Blandinier, a native of Blamont in Lorraine, received the title Baron of S. Odile in 1761 and was inscribed as a noble of Florence in 1762. Two of his kinsmen, Carlo Stefano and Giuseppe Carlo De Poirot, were employed in the Segreteria di Guerra, and another was employed in the staff of the Auditore della Giurisdizione.1 Charles Grobert was another Lorrainer inscribed among the nobles of Florence. He was employed in the Segreteria di Finanza, the Grascia, and later in the administration of the lottery.2 The second group consisted of young patricians, who seem to have been quite willing to advance themselves under the new government. Giulio Rucellai became the chief agent of the Council of Regency for matters regarding Church and State. He had first been appointed to office in 1731 under the last Medici, as an assistant in the office of Segretario della Giurisdizione. He succeeded to this office in 1734, was made a senator in 1736, and then advanced rapidly into the circle of advisors of the Council of Regency, replacing Carlo Ginori as secretary of the Riformagioni in 1746. A number of minor positions were attached to the Segreteria di Stato, where young men destined for high office often began their careers. A survey made in 1768 provides information about a number of patricians entering office in this way during the 1740s and 1750s.3 Vincenzo degli Alberti was employed as an assistant to the Council of Regency in 1743 when he was twenty-seven, and was given a regular place in 1747. He was called to Vienna in 1759 to serve in the Council of Tuscany and was awarded the title of Count. He returned to Florence in 1761 as a councillor of state, and became director of the Segreteria di Guerra in 1765. Francesco Maria Gianni, a patrician of later importance in the reform movement under Peter Leopold, began his career under the tax farm that was established in 1740. In 1750, at • ASF, Reggenza, F 352, Nobilta e cittadmanza, F 20, ins. 25. ASF, Reggenza, F 352, Nobilta e cittadinanza, F 19, ins. 19. 3 ASF, Reggenza, F 224-25.

2

268

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

age twenty-two, he obtained first a supernumerary and then a perma­ nent place in the office of Soprassindaci of the Monte, and in 1754 was promoted to director of the Dogana of Pisa.4 "After a short time em­ ployed as an underling," he later wrote, "I was destined for the office of Director General, and there profiting from the opportunities that business at hand presented, and from some good friends' advice, I went about acquiring information, details, and understanding of the inter­ ests of the finance and trade of Tuscany, and it seemed to me a glorious ambition to enrich myself in the science of matters of the state and leg­ islation."5 The third group among agents of the new regime were lawyers and jurists of the same type that had been employed under the Medici. Lawyers regained prominence in the eighteenth century. Some were foreign jurists, but an increasing number were Tuscan provincials who advanced through the courts. The Bonfini, who were ennobled in 1766, were a family from Bertinoro in the Papal States. Two brothers, Marco Filippo and Girolamo, were employed in the law courts and the finances in the 1740s.6 Giovan Bernardo Bricchieri-Colombi, from Fi­ nale in the Republic of Genova was made the Auditore Fiscale in 1746. His son Domenico succeeded him in office in 1758 and served in the Otto and Pratica Segreta before becoming an Auditore of the Consulta, where he remained until his death in 1787.7 Among Tuscan provincials, an important figure in the Hapsburg administration of both Tuscany and Lombardy during the mid-years of the century was Pompeo Neri, who was appointed secretary of the Council of Regency in 1737. His family, the Neri-Badia, came from the small town of Castelfiorentino near Volterra. His father had been an Auditore of the Ruota of Siena and an Auditore of the Ruota and Consulta in Florence. Pompeo Neri was educated at Siena and later in law at the University of Pisa. He was appointed to minor offices in Florence in 1729 and in 1735, and then in !737) when he was thirty-one, he was made secretary of the Council of Regency. "He is a very wise and diligent young man," Craon reported to Vienna, "whom General Wachtendronck has thought very suitable 4

Diaz, Francesco Maria Gianni, 1-4.

s

F. M. Gianni, "Educazione diretta agl'impieghi e cariche per mezzo delle passioni

che vi conducono," quoted in Diaz, Francesco Maria Gianni, 7. 6

ASF, Nobilta e cittadinanza,

7

Ibid.,

F

18, ins. 12-13.

F

18, ins. 11 bis.

PART VI

for this position."8 Later he became suspect by Richecourt in the con­ flict that developed in the Council of Regency between Richecourt and Marchese Carlo Ginori; he was transferred to Milan, where he worked for ten years in the commission engaged in making a new Catasto for Lombardy. But he returned to Florence in 1757 and had a central role in the Segreteria di Stato until his death in 1776.9 The First Efforts of Reform

The first efforts of reform developed at the end of the 1740s in the last phase of the War of Austrian Succession. The Council of Italy in Vi­ enna, and Craon and Richecourt in Florence, had views of the state quite different from those of Medici tradition. They perceived the Duchy as a regional territorial entity in which the privileges of Flor­ entine patricians were an impediment in their aim of general control. The central institutions of the Empire in Vienna were also undergoing a transition in this period, which aimed at a greater centralization of re­ sources. The model of government derived from Hapsburg tradition, from views of German Cameralists, for whom the important relation­ ships were between ruler and subject rather than between ruler and mu­ nicipal corporation, and increasingly from French absolutism. The change developed from the early years of the century and then inten­ sified during the wars of the 1730s and 1740s. In Italy, both the Duchy of Milan, which had become a possession of the Austrian Hapsburgs in 1714, and Tuscany were affected. In the Hapsburg administration of Lombardy the government of Milan, Mantova, Parma, and Piacenza was subordinated to central direction of the governor of Milan.10 In 8

Pansini, "Les reformes de Frangois-Etienne," 362. Rocchi, "Pompeo Neri." Two other provincials who entered office under the Re­ gency and became important later in the century were Francesco Seratti, later one of the chief secretaries of Pietro Leopoldo, and Angelo Tavanti, the central figure in the administration of the finances after the suppression of the tax farm in 1768. Seratti was the son of an Auditore Fiscale of Siena, who was ennobled in 1756, and began his career as an assistant in the Segreteria di Stato in 1759; see ASF, Nobilta e cittadmanza, F 21, ins. 9. Angiolo Tavanti was inscribed in the citizen class of Arezzo, studied law at Pisa and Rome, became a secretary to the Council of Finance in 1746, and was ennobled by im­ perial diploma m 1762; see Dal Pane, Finanza Toscana, 83η; ASF, Reggenza, F 352, Nobilta e cittadmanza, F 21, ins. 15. On the general direction of Hapsburg policy, see Klingenstein, "Riforma e crisi: La monarchia austriaca sotto Maria Teresa e Giuseppe II. Tentativo di un'interpretazione," 9

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

Tuscany similar changes were anticipated. The frustration of the re­ gents on their first assessment of the Medici system emerges clearly from their dispatches to Vienna. Craon reported in September of 1737: "The government of this place is a chaos almost impossible to pene­ trate; a mixture of aristocracy, democracy, and monarchy. [The Flor­ entines] have gone out of their way to confuse matters so that they can never be seen clearly . . . the only means of untying this Gordian knot is to cut it and start a new system."11 Richecourt developed the same theme: "When Tuscany became a principality it continued to be gov­ erned by Florentines with almost the same authority as they had before, and to preserve [their influence] they have taken care to keep distant from the chief offices of government any but Florentine citizens, thus making foreigners of the Sienese, the Pisans, the Pistoiese, although subjects of the same state. . . . [This] has caused an infinity of abuses and degenerated into a kind of anarchy for which it is absolutely nec­ essary to find some remedy."12 The Council of Regency clearly hoped to centralize and simplify administration, but the first changes were chiefly in the administration of the finances, which were put under the control of a company of tax farmers. At the time of the accession of Francis Stephen, the Empire was engaged in a costly war with the Turks on the borders of Hungary, and further need for funds developed subsequently. The sale of Medici possessions outside of Tuscany in France, and ultimately Rome, pro­ duced a certain amount of revenue.13 To reduce the cost of funding the huge Medici debt in the various Monti, the interest rates were reduced. In 1737 a general farm of the revenues of the Duchy and a lottery were sold to Genoese and Milanese bankers, and ultimately in 1740 to a French company under direction of Jean-Baptiste Lombart.14 The tax farm was renewed for another French company in 1749, and in 1753 for a Florentine company of Guadagni, Martelli, Serristori, and Grobert, and C. Capra, "Lo sviluppo delle riforme asburgiche nello stato di Milano," in Schiera, ed., La dinamica statale austriaca. Most recently on Milan, see Sella and Capra, Il ducato di Milano. " ASF, Reggenza, F 171, 10 Sept. 1737. 12

Ibid., F 13, 427.

1J

For the details of these arrangements, see Zobi, Memorie economico-politiche; 1, 21-58.

14

Dal Pane, Finanza Toscana, 53-65. Further on the tax farm, see Waquet, "La ferme

de Lombart (1741-1749)," and "Aux marges de l'impot."

PART VI

which lasted until 1768. Under the tax farm the yield of the finances increased significantly.15 The finances had been a particular preserve of patrician functionaries who were confronted by a reduction and reor­ ganization of personnel thought necessary for greater economy and ef­ ficiency. Richecourt reported to Vienna inJuly of 1741: "It is easy to see that a tax farm would not be well thought of since it would naturally diminish the number of employees [in the administration of the fi­ nances] as well as the authority of those who are currently employed."16 But the efforts of the Regency were not limited to fiscal matters. The Council also began a new effort to extend ducal authority, including an attempt to tax Church property and to limit clerical immunities. This involved the protection of freemasons, a virtual end to operation of the Inquisition in Florence, and, in 1743, a new regulation of the press, which was directed against clerical control of printing and publishing.17 The effort to assert control was an underlying motive for the registra­ tion of patricians and nobles through the law of 1750. A similar effort was directed to holders of ducal fiefs through a regulation of 1749, which affirmed central control over justices in the infeudated commu­ nities, and a struggle developed with some of the feudal nobles of the Duchy. The imperial fief of the Bourbon Del Monte, who were Mar­ ches! of Monte S. Maria near Citta di Castello, was infested with ban­ dits who terrorized the surrounding countryside. The occupation of the castle by troops sent out from Florence led to a lengthy but unsuc­ cessful appeal of the Bourbon del Monte to Vienna, which dragged on into the 1760s.18 In fact, the Council of Italy in Vienna and Richecourt in Florence planned a broad effort to impose a new order, which forecast devel­ opments later in the century. Francis Stephen foresaw elaboration of a new law code for the Duchy: "La refonte generate de toutes Ies Iois des etats qui composent notre Grand-Duche," as the dispatch from Vienna 15

The gross revenue of the Duchy grew by 22 percent (from 9 to 11 million Lire) be­

tween 1738 and 1758; see Dal Pane, Finanza Toscana, 64-65. 16

ASF, Reggenza, F 16, 37off., i8July 1741.

17

On the freemasons, see Sbigoli, Tommaso Crudeli. On the policy of the Regency to­

ward the Church, see Scaduto, Stato e Chiesa. 18

Zobi, Storia civile delta Toscana, 1, 286-88. A similar problem developed in the fief of

the Riccardi at Chianni and Rivalto, where peasants in revolt against the Riccardi estate agents were returned to order. On this incident, see ASF, Carte Riccardi,

F

385.

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

of May 1745 stated. Pompeo Neri, as secretary to the Council of Re­ gency, was to be entrusted with compilation of the code, and Senator Neri Venturi was to prepare a reform of judicial procedure. But the code encountered opposition and was abandoned at an early stage. Pompeo Neri prepared three reports on the project in 1747. Instead of a "refonte generale de toutes Ies lois," he proposed publication of a compilation of existing legislation that would be merely a "literary work" rather than a general statute that "would have of itself the force of law." He also wanted to proceed gradually, beginning only with the diversity of local communal statutes.19 The plan clearly raised points of tension between Vienna and Florence, in that Neri was unwilling to de­ liver the remaking of Tuscan law to foreign initiative and the duke alone; but his hesitation also reflected uncertainty about the appropriate procedure for compiling a new code. The eighteenth-century discus­ sion of law codes had hardly begun when his Discorsi were written, and there was legitimate uncertainty as to where the basis for a new code of laws might lie. But Pompeo Neri's interest in reform did not end with the abandonment of the law code. It developed through his other tasks of these years, notably the law on feudal jurisdiction and his Discorso on the nobility and citizen class, which were completed before his depar­ ture for Milan in 1749. In the Diseorso sopra la nobilta Toseana, he ap­ proached the problem of defining the Tuscan nobility in an historical manner similar to Montesquieu's interest in the underlying character of nations in the Esprit des lois, which was published in 1748. Montesquieu appealed to the historical, empirical, and practical tone of Florentine culture, and his works aroused interest in subsequent decades.20 It should thus not be concluded that Pompeo Neri opposed the gen­ eral aims of the Regency. His Diseorsi are indicative of the interest in reform that developed through the 1740s and 1750s. His overwhelming emphasis was on ducal statute, and on a centralized, uniform adminis­ tration of the Tuscan state as a whole. Significantly, he defined the no­ bility of the Duchy as Tuscan rather than merely Florentine in his Diseorso sopra la nobilta Toseana, and the new legislation he had begun to elaborate was to apply to the Duchy as a whole, rather than separately 19

Mortari, Tentativi di codificazione, 32.

20

On the reception of Montesquieu in Tuscany, see Berselli Ambri, L'opera di Montes­

quieu, 85-97.

PART VI

to the Florentine Dominion and the State of Siena. In the ten years he spent at Milan he was employed in a project similar to the ones he as­ sisted in Florence: the creation of a new centralized cadasteral survey for Lombardy. In Hapsburg service he became a model civil servant with high intelligence, professional efficiency, diligence in office, and loyalty to a new conception of the central state. Another treatise by Pompeo Neri remains from the period after his return to Florence from Milan in 1758. This one, dated 1763 and enti­ tled "Relazione delle magistrature della citta di Firenze," is interesting because it is concerned with the organization of the central offices of the bureaucracy.21 It traced the development of the Florentine magistracies under the Medici and the changes introduced under the Regency since 1737, and it advanced proposals for reform. The central theme was the "multiplicity and for the most part uselessness of the Florentine mag­ istracies." Neri traced the introduction of permanent Auditori and Provveditori who had deprived the rotating magistrates of their func­ tions ("They have," he wrote, "for a long time been occupied mostly by uninformed, poor, and lower class persons"), and argued that a con­ fusion of command existed even in the permanent offices. Plurality of officeholding by the "chief and most trusted ministers," he thought, made it impossible to observe a proper chain of delegated command. He felt this problem had become worse since 1737 through the practice by which the Council of Regency had circumvented earlier officials at different levels, and through the decrease in importance of the Consulta, the court of three justices that had emerged at the beginning of the seventeenth century as a high court of appeals. He considered the Consulta to be a tribunal that guaranteed the legality and regularity of administration—an appeal to the autonomy of law that reappeared in discussion later in the century. In general he wanted more regularly de­ fined procedures. "It is true that all is subordinated to the government, but the government without creating departments and having heads of each department ready to answer to their responsibilities keeps all the authority to command, but can never command with effect. . . . Keeping firm to the maxim of not repairing the ship," he concluded, "short is the voyage it can make."22 21

ASF, Seg. Gab., F 122. " Ibid.

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

Neri's Relazione of 1763 closely anticipated the reforms carried out under Peter Leopold after 1765, and Pompeo Neri was an important figure in the later reform movement. But he was not alone among sup­ porters of the new regime. Little further legislation was introduced un­ der the Regency after 1750, but there was a growing consensus in favor of reform, which was related to a change in tone of Florentine culture in these years, and a growing rejection of the mixed system of admin­ istration of the Medici. Giuseppe Pelli-Bencivenni obtained an office as secretary to the Council of Regency in 1758, and in 1759 he was also appointed to a rotating office in the magistracy of the Capitani di Parte Guelfa. He wrote in his journal: I have been as usual to the magistracy, which meets three times a week, that is, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings. There I persuade myself more and more that in the present system such magistracies are a mere formality, since the persons who attend cannot in the short time allowed master the pro­ cedures of the tribunal, or take on any remedy of abuses. . . . In the few months I have been in this office I have become aware that the method of the tribunal is truly chaotic and that to remedy it would require no little effort."23

Such sentiments embodied both an old and a new view of the state. This view grew out of the experience of permanent functionaries in the Medici bureaucracy, but now it advanced toward a more thoroughgo­ ing reform of administration that matched the criteria of Vienna and Lorraine. The impetus for reform came partly from Vienna. But its ac­ ceptance grew out of the change in balance between magistrates and functionaries that had been furthered by the Medici from the sixteenth century onward. The New Direction in Florentine Opinion

The eighteenth-century reforms were also distinguished from earlier developments in the bureaucracy by the logic and tone of discussion. An important new element of politics in that century was the emer­ gence of a new body of progressive public opinion independent of the Church and of the ducal Court. There was, to be sure, opposition to the Regency. A faction of the elite had sought deliverance in the hope that Carlo Borbone of Naples would intervene on the extinction of the Medici with establishment of an independent pro-Spanish Bourbon re23

BNF,

Nuovi Acquisti, 1050, G. Pelli-Bencivenni,

Efemeridi,

1, 119.

PART VI

gime in Tuscany. There were two recognizable parties: the Orsi, the pro-Spanish party, which was also supported by Rome; and the Lupi, who accommodated themselves to Austria and Lorraine. The letters of the English resident, Horace Mann, who was counted among the Lupi and snubbed by much of the Florentine elite, are full of gossip about the Orsi, but by the summer of 1742 their hopes were clearly flagging. They expired with the Austrian victories of that year, and with further imperial victories in 1744 and 1745 the new regime was firmly im­ planted.24 With no hopes at home there was little left to intransigents besides the road of exile.25 The defeat of the Spanish and papal party was significant because it put the Regency on the side of developing Tuscan opinion of the early Enlightenment. The offensive against the Church, the protection of freemasons, and the press law of 1743 had both political and ideological significance. Already under the last Medici duke, Gian Gastone, in the 1720s and 1730s, Florentine culture had begun to emerge from the at­ mosphere of clerical dominance of the reign of Cosimo III. An indica­ tion of the beginnings of change was the development of legal studies at the University of Pisa under Giuseppe Avernai, who is generally credited with a large part of the revival of interest in civil and public law in Tuscany.26 Pompeo Neri and other functionaries of the mid-eighteenth century were his students.27 Opinion developed further at Pisa in the midyears of the century under the rectorship of Gaspare Cerati and professors of logic and philosophy such as Gualberto De Soria, whose thought ranged from Deism to a critique of Divine Right monarchy, 24

In May of 1741, when it was rumored that Spanish and French ships were defeated

by an English squadron, Mann wrote to Horace Walpole: "The Orsi ask what I say about the fleets and are afraid I should utter destruction"; see Lewis, ed., Horace Walpole's Cor­ respondence, i, 39. In May of 1742 he wrote: "Even the Orsi seem to apprehend the over­ throw of the Napolispani [Neapolitans and Spanish]," and injuly he reported that the Orsi were attributing their reversals to the policies of Cardinal Fleury in France (ibid., 1, 427, 481). 25

The Storia genealogica delta nobilta e cittadinanza di Firenze of Giuseppe Maria Mecatti,

a genealogical work that displayed proofs of the antiquity of Florentine houses m re­ sponse to the law of 1750 on the nobility and citizen class, which was published at Naples in 1754, was a product of the emigration of Florentines to Naples. Further on the internal opposition, see Ventun, Settecento riformatore, 1, 299-306. 26

Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 340-42.

27

For a list of names, see Carranza, "L'Universita di Pisa," 518—22.

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

and later Giuseppe Maria Lampredi, who is associated with the study of natural law on rationalistic principles.28 At Siena in the 1720s was Sallustio Bandini, the first of the eighteenth-century Tuscan economists. He was author of a celebrated treatise of 1737 entitled Discorso sopra la Maremma di Siena, in which he decried the economic condition of Siena and proposed freedom to export grain as a means of stimulating local agricultural production. 29 Literary academies were important in Florentine cultural life. Alongside older academies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as the Accademia Fiorentina, Accademia della Crusca, and Apatisti, new academies sprang up: the Colombaria, the Societa Botanica, and, finally in 1753, the Accademia dei Georgofili, the first agrarian academy of eighteenth-century Europe. To these one might add provincial academies, such as the Accademia Etrusca at Cortona, the Rozzi and Fisiocritici at Siena, and others at Arezzo, Pistoia, Volterra, and Pisa.30 Giovanni Lami, an important figure in the intellectual life of Florence, founded the first Florentine literary journal in 1740, the Novelle Letterarie, which published news of foreign books. 31 Among foreigners in the city, Montesquieu, who visited Florence in 1728, later continued to correspond with Florentines and had a particularly close friendship with Cerati at the University of Pisa.32 The new press law of 1743 did not permit unrestricted publication of books, but Florence under the Regency was a place in which it was relatively easy to circulate ideas. This affected the outlook of both officialdom and the patrician elite. Foreign books were expensive but relatively easy to acquire, and an edition of the French Encyclopedic was published at Livorno in 1770. Some functionaries in the bureaucracy and their associates were minor authors. From the 1730s and 1740s one might cite Giuseppe Buondelmonte, nephew of Carlo Rinuccini of the Segreteria di Guerra. He studied law at Pisa but devoted his time to literature and translations of Pope and Milton. He was the author of 28 On De Soria, see Venturi, Settecento riformatori, 1, 346-53; Rotondo, "Il pensiero politico," 11, 989-1043. On the ambiguous figure of Giovanni Maria Lampredi, see Rotondo, "Su Giovanni Maria Lampredi," 3-28. 29 On Bandini, see Baker, Sallustio Bandini. 30 Cochrane, Tradition and Enlightenment. 31 Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 317-28. 32 Berselli Ambri, L'opera di Montesquieu, 13-23.

277

PART VI

many elogi, or funeral orations, which were a minor literary genre. Another author was Francesco Raimondo Adami, a brother of Senator Anton Filippo Adami. He translated the Brittanicus of Racine and Pope's Essay on Man, and presented an elaborate proposal for a new history of Tuscany under the Medici to the Accademia degli Apatisti in 1758.33 Giulio Rucellai, the Segretario della Giurisdizione, was a playwright. He was author of adaptations of Addison's Drummer and Moliere's Misanthrope.3* This occasional literature changed in tone, subject matter, and emphasis during the middle decades of the century. The new current of opinion was anticlerical, informed about currents of opinion developing north of the Alps, and warily open to advantages that might come from the new regime. The Regency began to acquire a favorable press through the emergence of a definitely anti-Medicean current of opinion. It was present, for example, in Anton Filippo Adami's Prospetto di una nuova compilazione della storiafiorentinaof 1758, in which he criticized the "jealous politics" that had led to the general impoverishment of Tuscany under the Medici. He called the period of Medici rule "a great void in our history."35 A similar view was developed by another Hapsburg functionary in Lombardy, Gian Rinaldo Carli, in his Saggio politico ed economico sopra la Toscana of 1767, and again, in a more exaggerated way, in Modesto Rastrelli's Fatti attinenti aU'inquisizione e sua istoria generale e particolare in Toscana in 1773. It was also present in Riguccio Galluzzi's Istoria del granducato di Toscana sotto ilgoverno della casa Medici of 1781, which was the crowning accomplishment of eighteenth-century Florentine historiography.36 Functionaries of the bureaucracy also began to explore a new literary genre: discourses on administrative and economic topics. The discussion of institutions, law, economic policy, and agriculture spilled over into the academies, the universities, and the works of amateurs. An early essay of this kind was Sallustio Bandini's Discorso sopra la Maremma di Siena, which was presented to the Council of Regency in 1737, although it was not published until 1775. Pompeo Neri's three Discorsi on the law code followed in 1747, and then in 1748 his Discorso sopra Io 33

Rosa, Dispotismo e liberta, 11-12, 27-33. Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 3 54. 35 Carranza, "Polemica antimedicea," 154; Rosa, Dispotismo e liberta, 30-31. ' 6 On these and other works, see Carranza, "Polemica antimedicea," 122-62 34

278

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

stato antico e moderno della nobilta Toscana·, these works were published in 1776. Giovanni Francesco Pagnini's Della Decima, a history of the land tax, was written from his office in the Decima under the tax farm in response to an inquiry about the procedures and regulations of Flor­ entine magistracies in 1746, although it was not published until 1765. In 1751 Pagnini and another functionary in the finances, Angelo Tavanti, published a translation of Locke's On Money, a part of the general discussion of fiscal matters in these years. In the development of interest in reform, the work of a country priest, Ubaldo Montelatici, was of importance. In 1752 he published a work entitled Ragionamento sopra i mezzi piu necessari per far rifiorire I'agricoltura, which was presented to the Council of Regency and dedi­ cated to Richecourt. Based on Bandini but inspired by the works of French agronomists, this was the first modern Tuscan work on agri­ cultural methods. In 1753, along with Giovanni Lami, the editor of the Novelle Letterarie, the botanist Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, and some thirty others, mostly patricians, he founded the Accademia dei Georgofili, which promoted discussion of agricultural improvement, based on English and French models, and of free trade in grain.37 It furthered the formation of a Tuscan school of agronomists that later included Leonardo Ximines, Angiolo Fabbroni, Matteo Biffi-Tolomei, and Marco Lastri. Its foreign subscribing members included Joseph Sonnenfels and the French economist, the elder Mirabeau. Arthur Young visited the Academy in 1787. The Florentine academies were important in the evolution of opinion in favor of reform, and they linked Florentine literary society to the bu­ reaucracy, as can be shown at a moment slightly later in the century. In 1783 the three older academies, the Fiorentina, Apatisti, and Crusca, were amalgamated into one by ducal decree, and a general list was made of the names and titles of all members.38 Another source provides the names of soci ordinari of the Accademia dei Georgofili.39 Among the 941 individuals, some of whom were members of more than one acad­ emy, were 451 members of the Accademia Fiorentina, 413 members of the Apatisti, 140 members of the Crusca, and 150 members of the 37

Venturi, Settecento riformatore, 1, 334-43. BNF, Manoscritti II. 11. 525, "Ruolo di tutti gli accademici che formavano presse accademie Fiorentina, della Crusca e degli Apatisti. . . 1783." 39 Tabburrini, Degli studi e delle vicende. 38

Ie

sop-

PART VI

Georgofili. The academies drew their members broadly from among patricians and the upper middle class. The inclusiveness of membership tended to link the bureaucracy with literary civil society, especially in the mid-years of the century when many patricians were still employed in the bureaucracy. About half of academy members were Florentine patricians or Tuscan or foreign nobles, and half were non-nobles. Many were priests, who accounted for one-fifth of the nobles and more than two-fifths of the non-nobles. An important group among lay nonnobles, 43 percent, were lawyers or doctors. Foreign subscribing members were relatively few, 12 percent of the total. The difference in social composition from academy to academy was not very great: the Crusca was the most aristocratic, exclusive, and illustrious in its foreign membership, the Apatisti were the most middle-class, and the Accademia Fiorentina and the Georgofili had the largest proportions of lay non-nobles. By matching academy members with names of functionaries in 1773 and 1784, the central years of the Leopoldine reforms, one can tell the relative degree of interaction between academicians and officeholders in the midst of the reforms. At this point patricians had begun to be pushed out of office, and a discontinuity, which became more striking in the later decades of the century, was growing between the bureaucracy and the academies; still, there was a sphere of interaction. The participation of functionaries in the academies decreased with social rank: 26 percent of older patricians in the academies were employed in the bureaucracy; 14 percent of new patricians and nobles; and only 6 percent of Tuscan non-nobles. Overall, 9 percent of academy members were functionaries. Viewed from the point of view of the bureaucracy in 1784, 35 percent of upper-level and 7 percent of intermediary-level officeholders were academy members, or 11 percent in all. Among academic functionaries were Ferdinando Fossi, the editor of the letters of fifteenth-century Florentine humanists in the Accademia Fiorentina, who was director of the ducal archive; the historian Riguccio Galluzzi, likewise of the Fiorentina, who worked in the Segreteria di Stato; and Giovanni Pagnini of the Georgofili, the author of the 1746 Delia Decima, who was in the Pratica Segreta. Some prominent and articulate functionaries such as Francesco Maria Gianni, whose economic works were written chiefly in the 1790s, were not on the roll of any academy, although Count Vincenzo Alberti, the secretary of 280

THE REGENCY FOR FRANCIS STEPHEN

state, was a member of the Accademia Fiorentina and the Georgofili. Antonio Serristori, who was in the Councils of State and Finance, was a member of the Accademia Fiorentina and Accademia della Crusca, Francesco Alessandri, an important official in the Finances, was in the Georgofili. Sigismondo della Stufa, the secretary of the Consulta, was a member of the Accademia Fiorentina and Accademia della Crusca. However, none of these men were literary figures of note. The activities of the academies ranged from the minor poetry of writers such as Anton Filippo Adami to massive multivolume works, such as the editions of Florentine authors and Vocabulario of the Accademia della Crusca. Through their collections and editing of Renais­ sance texts, they aroused interest in Florentine history and in the his­ tory of provincial towns such as Cortona, Arezzo, Siena, and Pisa before the establishment of Florentine domination. In addition, they helped in the development of science by showing experimental interest in practical subjects: meteorology, natural history, medicine, the salu­ brious advantages of mineral baths, and the statistical study of popu­ lation. 40 The academy lists of 1783 are also rich in authors of economic treatises. 41 There was also a revival of interest in politics and political thought. Florentines were slowly beginning to identify their experience within the new eighteenth-century discourse about the state. Montesquieu at­ tracted attention in the mid-years of the century. His aristocratic, mod­ erate, and anti-despotic views and the historical orientation of his works put him in sympathy with underlying tendencies of Florentine thought. His Lettres familieres were published at Florence in 1767 by a Neapolitan correspondent named Ottaviano di Guasco, who was an early member of the Accademia dei Georgofili. One can trace the re­ ception of the Esprit des Iois through the works of Stefano Bertolini, a lawyer from the University of Pisa, who progressed in the Florentine bureaucracy from Auditore in the Camera Granducale in 1740 to the Segreteria di Stato in 1782. Bertolini published an Analyse raisonee de I'esprit des Iois at Geneva in 1771. He interpreted Montesquieu in a lib— 40

Cochrane, Tradition and Enlightenment, passim. One finds the names of Giuseppe Sarchiam (Ragionamento sul commercio arti e maniJatture della Toscana, 1781), Ferdinando Paoletti (1 veri mezzi per render felice la societa, 1772), Marco Lastri (Biblioteca Georgica, 1787), and contributors of Discorsi on agricul­ tural subjects for the Accademia dei Georgofili. 41

PART VI

eral, progressive manner, favorable to reform, and drew from him a perception of the underlying historical development of Tuscan society that later brought him into opposition with some aspects of the Leopoldine reforms, although he was unable to locate in Florentine tradi­ tion a clear constitutional precedent for opposition.42 A further discus­ sion of natural law developed at the University of Pisa. Interest was also renewed in a native Florentine, Machiavelli, and the seventeenth-cen­ tury interpretation of his works, which had centered on The Prince and its seeming justification of princely absolutism, took on a reversal. The new eighteenth-century view came fully to light in the new edition of Machiavelli's works published by Ferdinando Fossi, Bartolommeo Follini, and Reginaldo Tanzini in 1782-83. Thus the Regency marked the beginning of a significant change in the patricians' relationship to the ducal government: a new dynasty, a new cadre in the bureaucracy, and a new relationship between func­ tionaries and public opinion. Before returning to the Florentines' thoughts about the state in the last years of the century and to the cri­ tique that began to develop toward ducal absolutism, it is necessary to consider the reorganization of the bureaucracy, which had begun under the Regency but was fully accomplished later in the century under Pe­ ter Leopold. 42 The opposition of Bertolini was largely to aspects of the introduction of free trade; see Mirri, "Profilo di Stefano Bertolini," 433-68.

THE LEOPOLDINE REFORMS, 1765-90

The reforms tentatively foreseen by the Regency in the 1740s were car­ ried out by Archduke Peter Leopold between 1765 and 1790. The Leopoldine reforms went far beyond what had been envisioned under Francis Stephen and Richecourt, and they also defined the Duchy's sys­ tem of administration until 1860. The new duke was the second surviv­ ing son of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen. His elder brother Joseph ultimately succeeded as emperor, and Peter Leopold was intended at first to be governor of Tuscany. But the death of Francis Stephen in Au­ gust of 1765 brought about Peter Leopold's full succession as Grand Duke.1 "The Florentines," Horace Mann wrote to Walpole, "seem very sensible of their good fortune in having a Prince again to live among them, after thirty years' bondage under unexperienced Lorrain minis­ ters and others as little fit or desirous to contribute to their welfare."2 The nature of the regime in Florence had already changed from what it had been on the death of the last Medici duke in 1737, and it soon changed still further. Francis Stephen and his advisors had operated within the atmosphere of seventeenth-century monarchy at the apex of its development. Peter Leopold matured in the new atmosphere that began to emerge in the 1740s and 1750s. He was educated in the years of the administrative reforms at Vienna that followed the War of Aus­ trian Succession. Among his tutors was Carl Anton Martini, a profes­ sor of natural law who followed the tradition of Puffendorf and Wolff, and he was also affected by the new interest in French culture of the En­ lightenment that developed at Vienna through the 1750s.3 Peter Leo­ pold later proved to be an exceptionally diligent ruler. He was entirely abreast of the concerns of contemporary statecraft and politics, had an 1 The best work on the circumstances of Peter Leopold's personal reign is Wandruszka, Pietro Leopoldo. 2 Lewis, ed., Horace Walpole's Correspondence, vi, 336. 3 Wandruszka, Pietro Leopoldo, chaps. 4, 9.

PART VI

independent intellectual ability, and was supported within the Florentine bureaucracy by intelligent advisors. At the moment of his accession, the Council of Regency was directed by Marshal Botta-Adorno, who was replaced by Count Rosenberg-Orsini, a career diplomat sent by Maria Theresa to supervise the actions of the young duke. The Court of gentiluomini di camera and dame di onore had been reduced merely to ceremonial functions. The business of government was in the hands of Tuscan functionaries who had entered office in the previous decades, some of whom, such as Pompeo Neri in the Segreteria di Stato and Vincenzo Alberti in the Segreteria di Guerra, also had experience at Vienna or in Lombardy. Along with Francesco Pecci and Angelo Tavanti they met in the Segreteria di Finanza as a council under the presidency of Rosenberg with participation of the duke. 4 A close cooperation developed between Peter Leopold and these ministers, and it became definitive with the departure of Rosenberg in 1771. From this collaboration sprang a new transformation of the bureaucracy in the years that followed. A central aim of the Regency's reforms in the 1740s was the perfection in Tuscany of a systeme monarchique, an ordered hierarchical administration under the duke and Council of State. But under Peter Leopold this aim gained a new content. Whereas the Regency had continued to reflect traditional mercantilist considerations of Hapsburg policy, particularly in the fiscal preoccupations of the regime, the spirit of reform later in the century was more utilitarian in the sense that the state was perceived to serve the interests of subjects at large. The new direction of policy emerged quite suddenly in the first years of Peter Leopold with the legislation that abandoned the economic controls of the Medici in favor of free trade in grain. The aims of administrative reform also changed. The regents had aimed at further centralization of jurisdiction at the top of the bureaucratic hierarchy by superimposing new offices of control over existing ones, a procedure not much different from the initial expansion of the bureaucracy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Peter Leopold undertook a much more thorough reorganization similar to what was envisioned in France by D'Argenson and Calonne and later in Prussia in the era of Stein. There was to be, certainly, a fur• Ibid., 264.

284

THE LEOPOLDINE REFORMS

ther centralization of authority at the apex of the pyramid, but more significant was an attempt at relative debureaucratization of adminis­ tration and encouragement of exercise of initiative at a local level. The number of functionaries in the central offices in Florence decreased. This was also consistent with the assumption that the interests of soci­ ety were best served by giving latitude to rational exercise of individual self-interest and initiative of subjects. In the formulation of D'Argenson in France, this was the notion of monarchy tempered not by aris­ tocracy, as for Montesquieu, but by democracy, through participation at a local level of well-intentioned property-owning subjects.5 The view, as the patricians discovered to their dismay, was anti-aristocratic. The functions of government were to be carried out by a public-spirited sovereign through the orders of magistrates in matters of justice, fi­ nance, and administration, on the one hand, and by the subjects them­ selves through communal and municipal institutions for the manage­ ment of local affairs, on the other. It has been recognized that the Leopoldine reforms contained this anti-aristocratic element, which had its fullest expression in the re­ forms of local municipal government and in the plan to write a consti­ tution for the Duchy, although the effect of the Leopoldine reforms on the organization of the bureaucracy has never been fully brought to light.6 Peter Leopold's voluminous notebooks of reflections on the government of Tuscany are punctuated with maxims that reflect his point of view. "Whoever governs Tuscany must listen to all, receive all persons of whatever condition . . . particularly from the countryside . . . without distinction of rank."7 "It is always important to keep one's eyes on the nobility, and not to enlarge it by creating new nobles."8 "In general, it must be kept in mind that the selection of functionaries is the most important of all the duties of he who governs . . . one must al­ ways diminish the number of functionaries as much as possible, and only keep the most necessary."9 "At the arrival of S. A.R. in Tuscany 5 On D'Argenson, see Keohane, Philosophy and the State, 376-91. For parallel devel­ opments in the Duchy of Milan, see Valsecchi, L'assolutismo illuminate·, Mozzarelli, Per la storia del pubblico impiegcr, Sella and Capra, Il ducato di Milano. 6 Anzilotti, Decentramento amministrativo. 7 Salvestrini, ed., Relazioni sul Governo della Toscana, 1, 18. 8 Ibid., 22. 9 Ibid., 56.

PART VI

the country and provinces were generally in a poor state . . . all busi­ ness was drawn from the countryside to Florence . . . the bad state of roads . . . the difficulties for merchants . . . the estates of the Church . . . the excessive number of monks and nuns . . . the tolls."10 "It is es­ sential that he who is at the head of the government of Tuscany keep in mind. . . to encourage agriculture above all. . . and maintain freedom of trade. . . . The best assistance . . . is what gives work to people."11 It is not difficult to show the effects of the reforms on the organiza­ tion of the bureaucracy because Peter Leopold gave particular attention to personnel. Indeed, a periodic review of formal rolls of officials, de­ partment by department, was undertaken. In 1768, on the eve of the abolition of the tax farm, he ordered distribution of a questionnaire in which officeholders were asked their ages, family circumstances, pat­ rimony, birth places, duration of service, earlier and present offices, and the components of their salaries.12 Then, in the spring of 1773, when the reform of local communal government was beginning to be effected, he had compiled a three-volume survey of the central bureau­ cracy as a whole, with observations on the character of each of the prin­ cipal employees.13 Finally, in the spring of 1784, when the administra­ tive reforms were largely completed, there was another grand survey showing the state of each bureau, before and after the changes contem­ plated in that year, with detailed observations on salaries.14 By com­ paring these lists with the state of the bureaucracy in 1736, the last year of the Medici (in Appendix A.I), the trend of the reform movement with regard to the new deployment of offices and personnel becomes clear. In general, there was a decrease in the size of the bureaucracy. The number of offices (including rotating magistrates) fell by nearly 30 per­ cent, from 598 in 1736 to 419 in 1784. As with the lists of functionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, certain magistracies or bu­ reaus have been omitted from consideration in this study, and we are 10 Ibid., 11, 8. " Ibid., 11, 11. 12 The responses omit bureaus in the fiscal administration which were still under the tax farm; some others are also missing since officeholders at an intermediary level were not all reported. See ASF, Reggenza, FF 224-25. " A S F , Seg. Gabinetto, FF 124, 125, 126. 14

Ibid.,

FF 127-29.

THE LEOPOLDINE REFORMS

considering only upper and intermediary-level offices exercised in Florence. But the lists from the late eighteenth century are of better quality than the list for 1736, and the coordination of offices was done very carefully.15 A large part of the reduction in staff was accomplished through the suppression of rotating magistrates. These offices largely disappeared in the financial administration during the 1740s and 1750s under the tax farm. Only the four senators of the Monte Comune and four citizens of the Decima remained in 1773. The tribunals of the Capitani di Parte and Nove Conservatori del Dominio disappeared in 1769, and the Otto di Guardia, Sindaci of the Ruota, Conservatori di Leggi, and Archivio were suppressed in 1777. The Stinche disappeared in 1779, the Monte Comune in 1780, and the Decima in 1781.16 The Council of 200 was also suppressed in 1781, and finally the office of the secretary of the Tratte disappeared in 1782. The approval of appointments reverted to the Segreteria di Stato. In 1784 collegial boards remained only among judges of the Consulta and the Ruota and for two senators in the Magistrato dei Pupilli who survived the reform of this office in 1777.17 Meanwhile, the number of places in the permanent staff had increased under the Regency and during the first years of Peter Leopold, largely through short-term absorption of staff from bureaus that were suppressed and replaced by new ones. The Camera del Commercio, which was created in 1770 and then suppressed in 1781, absorbed temporarily much of the staff of the Mercanzia and also some from the guilds. The increase in the number of offices was most in the upper councils of state, the law courts, and the general administration, which had more places in 1773 than in 1736. But the number of offices then decreased in the 1770s, so that the total size of the central bureaucracy in 1784 was smaller than it had been in 1736. There was also a greater effort to indicate functional differences among different departments under Peter Leopold. The councils of 15

It is indeed possible that the number of places in some bureaus were slightly larger than the list for 1736 indicates, the result of a failure to report supernumerary officeholders. One notices, for instance, that the number of intermediary-level places attached to the Otto di Guardia, in the law courts, increased between 1736 and 1773 (and the larger number for 1773 was also reported in the survey for 1768). 16 For indications of drawings of magistrates, see ASF, Tratte, F 91. " The reform legislation as cited here and below is summarized m detail in Governo delta Toscana, and in Salvestrini, ed., Relazioni sul Governo delta Toscana. 287

P A R T VI state were divided into specialized Councils of State, Finance, and War, a distinction that had existed under the Medici and was reaffirmed with the establishment of the Regency in 1737. In 1773 there were five mem­ bers of the Council of State, among whom Pompeo Neri was without portfolio. These were divided between the Segreteria di Stato, directed by Francesco Siminetti and Tommaso Piccolomini; the Segreteria di Finanza, directed by Angelo Tavanti; and the Segreteria di Guerra, which was later absorbed into the Segreteria di Stato, directed by Count Alberti. In 1789 the Councils of State and Finance were com­ bined into a single council under a first councillor of state, Antonio Serristori, who stood above the Segreteria di Stato and the Segreteria di Finanza. 18 This division of affairs affected the articulation of the bu­ reaucracy at a lower level. Subordinate offices were differentiated by their dependence on the different branches of the Consiglio di Stato. There had been, to be sure, hierarchies of command under the Med­ ici, but they had a less clear functional division. The lists of officehold­ ers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had no consistent way of arranging one magistracy after another. The hierarchy of command depended on key officials, particularly the Auditori, who intervened ex officio from bureau to bureau. The upper-level councils of state had overlapping areas of jurisdiction, no single council supervised the fi­ nances, and an ambiguity existed among judicial functions and finan­ cial management in magistracies at a lower level. But starting with the survey of 1773, bureaus were clearly distinguished by their dependence from the Consiglio di Stato, the Consiglio di Finanza, or, for the small military force, the Segreteria di Guerra. Table 14.1 shows the articula­ tion of offices according to the stato nuovo of the bureaucracy in 1784. 19 The Consiglio and Segreteria di Stato had become a ministry of inte­ rior, with authority over the central law courts, justices in the pro­ vincial towns, and some areas of general administration; the Pratica Segreta of Cosimo I had disappeared; and the Magistrato Supremo only retained its function as a court for certain civil cases. Thus the "upper councils," "law courts," and "general administration," in the sense used 18 For more on the Consiglio di Stato and Segreterie di Stato e Finanze in the arrange­ ment of 1773, see ASF, Seg. Gab., F 124, c. 4iff.; F 125, c. I7ff. 19 The table omits offices dependent on the Segreteria di Stato per Affari Esteri e Militari, that is, diplomatic personnel abroad and the small military force previously under the Segreteria di Guerra.

TABLE 12.4 FUNCTIONAL

DIVISIONS

W I T H I N THE BUREAUCRACY

IN

1784

Foreign and Military Affairs Diplomatic representatives abroad; Tuscan military force Special Courts, Archives 'Consulta; 'Ruota Fiorentina; 'Magistrate Supremo; "Pupilli; 'Segreteria di Regio Dintto; 'Archivio delle Riformagioni, 'Nobiltà, Confini; 'Archivio Generale; *Archivio Diplomatico Regular Courts and Prisons

*CONSIGLIO DI STATO * Segreteria di Stato, Affari Esteri e Militare

s

*Supremo Tribunale di Giustizia; 'Fisco; 'Commissari de Quartieri; *Stinche; *Casa di Correzione Provincial Justices Giusdicenti Provinciah (Commissari, Capitani, Vicari, Podestà) General Administration Religione di S. Stefano; Studio Fiorentino; Libraria Maliabecchiana; Spedali di S. M. Nuova, Innocenti, S. Matteo; Conservatoio di S. Bonifazio, Bigallo; Opera del Duomo

DUKE


9>

(23)

124 129

(15)

(16)

(16)

(20)

(20)

TP

T

542

542

623 (13)

(13)

(8)

480 579

(30)

33 66

(10)

(25) (12) (5) (10)

(11)

(13)

('3)

(14)

(14)

(14)

(II)

(32)

(22)

(9)

(9)

(8)

(33)

(65)

(65)

(73)

(22)

(39)

(70)

(70)

(75)

(25)

RM

483

489

489

425

421

II

53

53

9

72

72

69 69

(11) (10) (11)

(25)

(75)

(12)

(12)

(10)

(20)

(10)

(10)

(8)

(5)

(14)

(10)

(10)

(10)

(12)

(12)

(9)

(25)

(30)

(77)

(77)

(80)

(55)

(60)

(79)

(79)

(10) (10)

(80)

(9)

4

404

404

350

42

10

58

58

54

419

419

357

47

12

61

61

55

4

3 67

3 66

2

2

Total offices.

KEY: OP = Older patricians; PFP = Patricians frequently priors; NPN = N e w patricians and nobles; o = Non-nobles; T = Identified officeholders; OFF =

NOTE- N u m b e r s in parentheses are percentages. Italicized columns are subtotals.

(65)

(65)

(73)

(12)

(16)

PI

(15)

63

(22)

(36)

(30)

(41)

PU

448

31

(39)

(18)

(33)

(36)

115

(II)

(13)

107

98

44

(13)

8

115

(14)

9

8

5

9

PM

RM

TOTALS

(70)

(70)

(6)

(15)

(23)

T

(75)

TP

(25)

(4)

(25)

(38) (16)

(50)

(20)

(44)

(11)

PI

(33)

(44)

PU

PM

General Administration

483

(8)

•53

79

% Inc.

Tot.

±36

+ .20

±32

±33

STD

±0

±0

A.3

•51 113 84

sal.

Tot.

Adj sal.

533

714

714

58

78

.16

16

71

AV

% Inc

6

6

86

17

17

86

N

85

±0

±0

±61

+.27

±65

±44

STD

42

417

700

700

54

91

.43

85

74

AV

Inccrti

6

6

77

16

16

77

N

1604

Prow.

Permanent magistracies(other)

500

500

Adj. sal.

500

Tot. sal.

% Inc

Incerti

Provv.

Permanent magistracies(law courts)

Adj. sal.

79

60

Inccrti

sal.

66

Provv

Rotating magistracies

AV

APPENDIX

±98

±23

±93

± 29

±23

±23

±35

±.11

±10

±32

STD

30

25

25

30

II

11

73

34

34

73

N

1551-1784

1695

M E A N P R O V V I S I O N I , I N C E S T , A N D T O T A L SALARIES,

57

73

•54

23

45

547

702

702

58

74

74

AV

±70

±27

±41

±27

±3

±3

±26

±26

STD

1736

25

16

18

21

9

9

85

85

N

1551

14

• 19

152

152

Incerti

% Inc.

Tot. sal.

Adj. sal

± 121

+ .27

±19

±123

.40

61

61

Incerti

% Inc.

Tot. sal

Adj. sal.

74

47

43

82

82

Prow.

Incerti

% Inc

Tot sal.

Adj sal.

TOTAL

53

43

Provv.

±84

± 26

±39

+ 84

±40

±.27

±43

±33

16

3

3

16

251

48

48

246

152

29

29

147

Permanent mtermediary-level offices

149

Provv.

Permanent upper-level offices

60

.40

75

93

44

74

.21

21

69

169

170

±116

±.27

±64

±113

±65

±17

±16

±56

±131

±133

287

20

20

280

170

3

3

164

25

24

124

166

•33

55

120

114

152

•35

58

99

278

372

.21

113

302

+ 161

±.26

±70

406

146

146

256

264

+ 112

±153

80

80

131

28

7

7

11

+ .27

+ 66

+ 76

±248

±.15

+ 105

±213

124

159

•33

47

121

114

145

.31

47

106

304

387

41

89

300

±148

±.32

±81

± 127

±97

±.32

±84

±73

+ 252

±.40

± 100

±194

505

177

179

408

350

150

150

268

36

11

11

25

100

101

±41

+ 40

89

.41

Incerti

Pensione

% Inc.

+ 100

300

Prow.

±194 67 .29

11 11

151

312

25

±154

±.33

±97

±188

57

Permanent upper-level offices

73

Adj sal.

420

±740

25

804

+ 70

Salary

+ .15 ±.25

.14

16

±185

+ 367

.30

181

18

% Pens.

±.27

430

21

±457

% Inc.

±27

443

23

•54

Incerti

Pensione

45

Prow.

301

547

Adj. sal.

Permanent magistracies (other)

575

702

Salary ±77

± 0

.22

% Pens. 9

±28

Pcnsionc ±3

9

+ .20

36 142

% Inc.

28

25

28

44

5

3

3

3

2

5

9

2

2

9

9

±48

9 ±119

±3 217

702

326

Provv.

N

Incerti

AV

STD

N

STD

Permanent magistracies (law courts)

AV

1784 (1)

1736

APPENDIX A.3 (Cont.)

152

272

322

616

.44

540

346

321

614

.19

501

AV

±145

±148

27

42

3 6

±691

3

6

±.17

±505

±324

8 10

±189

8

10

N

± 1 1

±159

±56

STD

1784 (2)

304

Adj. sal.

Adj.

•25

177

92

176

±45

114

±

190

±.23

±129

±.26

±

±96

± 24

•33

91

410

177

±.18 ±177

.28 174

162 481

34 177

+122

34

397

81

±64

± U 7

162

.48

68

138

352

139

139

± 3 3

255

255

458

69

±89

±.18

.28 131

129 418

±58

34

34

±.33

339

±64

42

±63

27

±•17

±223

54

.48

68

108

193

370

129

203

215

400

49

28

=

* Rotating magistracies omitted.

converted into Scudi at the current rate o f 1 3 : 1 .

Other values are the reported current values in Scudi o f account, except for 1 7 8 4 when Lire were

Total salary; Adj. sal. = Total salary adjusted for inflation in current prices o f grain at Pisa — Index: 1 5 5 1 = 100; 1604 = 168; 1695

134; 1 7 3 6 = 128; 1 7 8 4 = 1 9 1

=

percentage of salary made up by Incerti, Pensione = Pension; % Pens. = Mean percentage o f salary made up b y Pensione; Tot. sal

KEY: AV = Mean salary (Scudi); STD = Standard deviation; N = N u m b e r o f offices used; P r o w . = Provvisione; % Inc = Mean

135

Adj. sal.

420

24

179

.31

173

Salary

±157

±.33

129

323

% Pens.

•34

% Inc.

140

±81 89

47

±

70

Pensione

134

114

Incerti

sal.

Provv.

TOTAL*

97

134

.32

+

±.32

350

% Pens.

145

±92

66

Pensione

Salary

±.26

.2

150

31

±54

% Inc.

±57 33

±84

±73

150

47

Incerti

268

106

Provv.

Permanent intermediary•level offices

212

± .21 ±307

.30 405

36

Salary

+ 252

387

% Pens.

APPENDIX B

SUMMARY I N F O R M A T I O N ABOUT PATRICIAN HOUSES The following is summary information about the 714 houses that made up the Florentine elite of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in the sense used in this study. These are houses that appeared four times or more as priors of the Re­ public during the fifteenth century, and houses that were registered in the Libri di Oro of Florence between 1751 and 1800. Collateral branches of houses have been grouped together in the way they were treated in the Priorista Mariani (ASF, Manoscritti, 248-53) for the fifteenth century, and as they were grouped in the proofs of nobility of patricians and nobles for the eighteenth-century Li­ bri di Oro (ASF, Deputazione sopra la Nobilta e Cittadinanza), except that col­ lateral lines in the eighteenth century that were descended from the same casata of Mariani have been grouped together. The information in the numbered col­ umns is as follows: (1) Surname (some are hyphenated names). (2) Group within the "identified elite" (see Chapter 8 and Table 8.2). PFP = priors four times or more during the fifteenth century; PLP = fewer priors in the fifteenth century, or other claim to standing under the Republic; NP = new patricians (appeared in Florence after 1530, but were given patrician standing in the eighteenth century); N = nobles (given noble standing in the eighteenth century). (3) Entry. Date of first prior, χ indicates first admission to offices or citizenship in the period 1530-1782. A blank in this column indicates an uncertain or unknown date of entry. (4) Senate, χ indicates senators under the Duchy. (5) Order of St. Stephen, χ indicates admission to the Order of St. Stephen under the Duchy. (6) χ indicates that family had acquired a fief in Tuscany or elsewhere, or had a feudal title of honor such as "Count." (7) Date of inscription in the Libri di Oro. (Houses listed as PFP, PLP, or NP in Column 2 were registered as patricians. Houses listed as N in Column 2 were registered as nobles.) (8) Date of extinction when known, χ indicates extinction before the eight362

SUMMARY INFORMATION

eenth century at some unknown date. Dates of extinction were not traced systematically after 1800. (9) Comment on origin of houses at the time of the Republic: P + 4 = priors four times or more in the fifteenth century; P — 4 = priors fewer than four times in the fifteenth century or in other periods of the Republic; ACIT = "citizens" under the Republic; NCIT = "citizens" after 1530; MAGN = an­ ciently magnati; OTPN = "patrician" or "noble" of a town other than Flor­ ence; o-u = other or unidentified. (10) Source. The number following M is the number of order in the Priorista Mariani. The number following NC is the Filza and insert number of the proofs of nobility in the archive of the Deputazione sopra la Nobilta Toscana. Indications for another source for identification of houses, the ge­ nealogies in ASF, Carte Sebrigondi, were omitted from this table. But houses can be identified easily in the Sebrigondi papers from the infor­ mation provided here.

APPENDIX B (10)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

PFP

1282

X

X

X

1751

1834

P+ 4

M26 NC(8)I

PFP

1286

X

X

P+ 4

M156

p+ 4

M158

X

X

p+ 4

M 7 9 3 NC(1)1-2

OTPN

NC(3)50

p+ 4

M I 9 4 NC(5)I

(1)

(2)

Acciaiuoli Adimari Alimanneschi

1396

Alamanni

PFP

Albergotti

NP

Alberti Del Giudice

PFP

1289

X

X

X

1751

M975

PFP

1378 1282

p+ 4

Albizzi

X

X

X

1751

p+ 4

M49

Aldana

NP

X

1752

NCIT

NC(I2)J

Aldobrandini Di Madonna

PFP

1320

X

X

1751

p+ 4

M 5 2 1 NC(12)3

Alessandri

PFP

1376

X

X

1752

Almeni

NP

X

Altoviti

PFP

1752 1751

Alberti Lippi

Amadori Ambrogi

1354

X

PFP

X

X X

X

X

1440

1790

X

1298

Dell' Ancisa

PLP

Anforti

N

Angiolini

1475

X

1751

X

X

1751

1343

Anichini

NP

X

1790

Ansaldi

NP

X

1759

Anselmi

1283

Dell' Antella

PFP

Antinori

PFP

Anziani

N

Ardimanni

NP

Ardmghelli

PFP

1282 1351

1836 X

1311

Dell' Amorotta

1795

1782

X

1282

1751

X X

X

1282

p+ 4

M53 NC(12)7-8

1764

NCIT

NC(L2)9-10

1853 1636

p+ 4

M15 NC(8)2-3

p+4

1829

p+ 4

M437 M1388 NC(65)I

1592

p+ 4

M3I5

1781

p-4

MI465

NCIT

NC(I8)2

1617

P+ 4

M632

NCIT

NC(65)2

1765

NCIT

NC(12)12

X

P+ 4

M6I

1698

P+ 4

M43

P+ 4

M773 NC(I)3

1773

OTPN

NC(I8)3

1759

NCIT

NC(8)4

P+ 4

M36

X

Arditi

1471

P+ 4

MI453

D ' Anngho

1387

P+ 4

MI159

1816

NCIT

NC(29)4

Arnolfi

1318

1570

P+ 4

M505

Arrighetti

1367

X

P+ 4

M899

Arnaldi

N

Arrighetti

NP

Arrighi

PFP

Arrighi

N

Arrigucci

X

1789

X

1751

1825

o-u

NC(8)2,5

X

1751

1761

p+4

M44I NC(l2)l3

X

1762

X

OTPN

NC(I8)4

P+ 4

M953

P-4

M616

p+4

M1303 NC(8)6

X

1373

X

1375

Degli Asini

PLP

Attavanti

PFP

1343 1409

(12) 1-2

1751

X X

1861

NC

X

X

X

X

1751 1751 364

1794 1752

SUMMARY (1)

(2)

(3)

Azzini

1344

Delia Badessa

1287

(4)

(5)

INFORMATION (6)

(7)

NP

Bagnese

PFP

Bagnese Berlinzini

NP

X

1751

Baillou

N

X

1770

Baldesi

PLP

1348

1753

Baldi

N

X

1758

Baldigiani

N

X

1752

Baldinotti

N

Baldocci

NP

Baldovinetti

PFP

1751

X

X

1287

X

1305

Barbadori

I29S

Barbolani D i Montauto

PIP

Bardelli

NP

D e Bardi

PLP

Bardi Gualterotti Barducci Ceccherini

X

1823

X

X

X

X

X

N

Baroncelli Bandini

PFP

X

X

1287

X

PFP

Bartolelli

M274

1753

ACIT

NC(1)16 (12)5

1772

1783

O-U

NC(8)8

P-4

MI NC(1)7-8

1679

P+ 4

M4

1795

P+ 4

M I I 5 5 NC(1) 1 2

P+ 4

M927

NCIT

NC(18)9

P+ 4

M177

X

p+ 4

M585

1776

P+ 4

MI368 NC(l2)l6

P+4

MI 274

p+ 4

M673 NC(8)9

P-4

M842 NC(5)5

P+ 4

M933

OTPN

NC(L2) 17

P+ 4

M848 NC(8) 10

P+ 4

M327

P-4

MI495 NC(L)l3

P+ 4

M823

1752

Bartoli Filippi

PLP

1361

X

1753

Bartolini

PFP

1373

Bartolini Bardelli

NP

Bartolini Salimbeni

PFP

1859

X 1751

1800

1751 1639

1299 1495

X

X

NC(I)S

P+ 4

1751

PLP

NC(63)8

1756

X

Bartolini Scodellari

NC(I8)7

O-U

P+ 4

IJ45

X

NC(I8)6

NCIT

1615

PFP

X

M735

NCIT

M179 NC(8)7

Bartoli

X

NC(12)4

P-4

M405

1395

1362

NC(I8)8

o-u

P+ 4

1751

X

M695 NC(5)4

o-u

1814

1752

1437

NC(1)4 (65)3

p+ 4

1751

1330

Baronci

o-u

NCIT

1751

1387

M165

1767

1372

Bargigli

Bartolommei

1777

M658 p+ 4

1754

1282 PFP

Barducci Ottavanti

Baroncini

1282

1802

1788

X

Banchi

1759

X

(10)

(9)

1649

Da Bagnano

1346

(8)

1751 X

Bati

1357

Beccanugi

1284

p+ 4

MI04

Becchi

1437

p+ 4

MI364

p-4

M98 NC(l5)2I

D e l Beccuto Orlandini

PLP

1283

1752

365

APPENDIX B (1)

(2)

(4)

(3)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(10)

(9)

(8)

Belfredelli

1321

P+ 4

M539

Bellacci

1342

1570

P+ 4

M6IO

Benci

1302

1611

P+ 4

M378

Benci

1407

X

p+ 4

M1295

Benci Guernieri

1369

1632

p+ 4

M907

Bencivenni

1320

1562

P+ 4

M527

X

P + 4

M556

1584

P + 4

MI190

P + 4

M1101

Bencivenni

PFP

Bencivenni

1326

X

1389

Benevieni

1383

Benini

1321

X

P+ 4

M529

Benini Gucci

1402

X

P+ 4

MI285

1345

1679

P+ 4

M66O

M1354

D e l Benino Naldi Benin tendi

1435

p+ 4

Benin ten ti

1389

P+ 4

MI183

Benozzi

1388

P+ 4

M1176

Bentaccordi

1296

X

p+ 4

M287

1793

p+ 4

M883 NC(5)6

1605

p+ 4

M1383

1781

p+ 4

M86I NC(8)11

NCIT

NC(I8)IO

1610

p+ 4

M887

1807

NCIT

NC(65)4

1670

P+ 4

M1152

ACIT

NC(12)8

P + 4

MI46I

Benvenuti

PFP

1438

Benvenuti Berardi

PFP

Beriguardi

N

Berlinghieri Beroardi Dragomanni

1363

X

1751

X

1751

X 1365

NP

Berti Betti

1751

1365

1790

X

X

1387 1768

PLP

Betti Bernardi

1474

D e l Biada

1366

1607

P + 4

M889

Del Bianco

1412

X

P + 4

M1310

P + 4

M8I9

Biffoli

PFP

1356

X

X

Biliotti

PFP

1299

X

X

1751

1813

P + 4

M324 NC(1)14

Bini

PFP

1352

X

X

1751

1843

P + 4

M779 NC(I)I5

Bischieri

1309

P+ 4

M428

Bizzini

1410

P + 4

M1304

Boccacci

1342

P+ 4

M608 N C ( l 2 ) l 9 - 2 0

1776

NCIT

NC(5)7

1620

P+ 4

MI60

1762

NCIT

NC(I8)II

1770

O-U

NC(I8)IIBIS

1766

O-U

NC(I8)II

P+ 4

MI398

Bocchineri

NP

Bociani

1751

X

X

1286

Bolognini

N

Bonechy

N

Bonfini

N

Boni

PFP

X

X

1442

X

1644

X

366

SUMMARY

(8)

(9)

X

1751

1832

p+ 4

M 8 6 7 NC(I)I6 (5)8

X

1751

1810

P+ 4

M1405 NC(S)9

X

1752

1768

p - 4

M1499 NC(8)12

1670

p+ 4

M605

1801

p+ 4

M1427 NC(8)I3

1608

p+ 4

M1235

x

p+ 4

M664

x

p+ 4

M978

MAGN

NC(15)41I7

P + 4

M121

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Bonsi

PFP

1364

X

B o n s i Succhielli

PFP

1445

Borgherini

PLP

1495

Borghini Taddei Dal B o r g o

PFP

1460 1393

Borsi

1345

Borsi

1378

Bourbon Del Monte

-

X

x

1757

1284

Boverelli

NP

Bracci C a m b i n i

PLP

1768

1379

Brancacci

1317

Brandolmi

PFP

Bricchieri Colombi

N

Broccardi Scelmi

PLP

Brucioli

1751

X

1478

Bramanti

x

1393

1398

Del Bugliaffo

1387

P + 4

MI028

p+ 4

M475 M I 2 2 9 NC(5)10

X

1768

o-u

NC(I8)I2-I3

1768

MAGN

NC(5)II

P+ 4

MI27I

1771

1801

ACIT

NC(12)21

X

p+ 4

MI348

p+ 4

M95S

p+ 4

M122

p+ 4

M1270

p+ 4

M1165

1284

Bucherelli

M1474

p+ 4

X

I37S

NC(1)19

p - 4

1774

1434 PFP

OTPN

X

X

PLP

Bucelh

X

X

1751

1764

ACIT

NC(5)I2

X

1751

1724

P+ 4

MI285

p+ 4

M3I2

p-4

M1511

ACIT

NC(L2)23

1789

O-U

NC(64)2

1752

MAGN

NC(I)I7-I8

O-U

NC(52)4

P+ 4

M 6 2 7 NC(5)I4

Buini

PLP

Buonaccorsi Corazzai

PFP

1402

X

Buonaccorsi D i Noferi

PFP

1301

X

Buonaccorsi Permi

PLP

1523

Buonaccorsi Pinadon

PLP

Buonamici

NP

Buonaparte

PLP

Buonaparte Franchmi

N

1763

Buonarroti Simoni

PFP

1343

X

X

1751

Buondelmonte

PFP

1442

X

X

1751

Buoninsegni

1816

1398

Brunetti Bruni

X

PLP

Boverelli

Brunaccini

(6)

1340

Borgognom

(10)

(7)

(1)

X

INFORMATION

1751 1752 X

1393

367

1782

1790

1774

Nc(5)i3

P+ 4

M1395 NC(8)I4

P+ 4

M1232

APPENDIX B (2)

(3)

D e l B u o n o Leale

PLP

1345

Buontalenti

N

(I)

Buonvanni

(4)

(7)

1762

X

(8)

1780

1434 PFP

1345

D e l Caccia

PFP

1381

X

Caccini Ricoveri

PFP

1350

X

Cafferelli

M1062

p+ 4

M763 NC(5)15

X

p+ 4

M574

OTPN

NC(I8)5

1674

P+ 4

M1141

1819

p-4

MI464 NC(13)1

p+ 4

M444

1751

C a m b i Importuni

PFP

1302

X

PFP

1437

X

Cambi Di Napoleone

PFP

1439 1380

Canacci

PFP

1363

Canigiani

PFP

1282

Cantucci Delle Stelle

PLP

Cappelli

1751

X

1287

Carcherelli

PLP

1346

Cardicigoli

N

Carducci

PFP

Carlini

N

Carnesecchi

PFP

Carnesecchi

N

Delia Casa

PFP

Castellani

PLP

Castellani D i Altafronte

PFP

Castelli

N

D a Castiglione

PLP

Cataldi

N

Cattani Cavalcanti

PLP

1495

Cavalcanti

PFP

1450

Cavalloni Lorini

PLP

X

X

M362

P+ 4

M1372 NC(9)1

1655

p+ 4

MI385

X

p+ 4

MIO36

p+ 4

M1274

1777

p+ 4

M865 NC(9)2

1751

1813

p+ 4

M9 NC(2)1

X

1754

1730

ACIT

NC(I3)2

P+ 4

M562

X

1751

P+ 4

M I 7 2 NC(2)2-6

P-4

M683

1763

OTPN

NC(50)5

1326 PFP

p+ 4

1771 X X

Capponi

M671

1749

1754

C a m b i Mercanti

1399

M1351

p+ 4

1312

Cambini

NC(I8)I4

P+ 4 P+ 4

1475

Cambini

M667 NC(8)15

NCIT

1749

1773

X

P-4

1713

1386

Cambi Figliagambucci

(10)

X

1324

PLP

(9)

X

N

Calandri Cambi

(6)

1773

X

Busini

Caimi

(5)

1751

X

1833

1380

X

1751

P+ 4

MI039 NC(9)3

X

X

1767

NCIT

NC(I8)I6

X

1751

P+ 4

M308 Nc(i3)3

1297

X

X

1765

X

1393

1751 1326

1756

o-u

NC(I8)6

1648

p+ 4

M1236

1778

ACIT

NC(5)I6

P+ 4

M554NC(5)I7

1751

X

1751

X

1461

X

X

1816

1751 1752

X

1751 X

1727

X 1771 368

NCIT

NC(I8)I8

P-4

M 1 4 3 1 NC(9)7

O-U

NC(I8)I9

p-4

M1498 NC(I3)4

P+ 4

M1413

ACIT

NC(2)7

SUMMARY (1)

(2)

Cecchini

NP

X

(5)

(6)

X

PFP

(8)

1772

1709

NOT

NC(5)18

X

P+ 4

MI308

1388

P+ 4

MII77

P+ 4

MI335

X

1426

Cennini

X

1496

Cepperello

PLP

Ceramelli

N

X

Cerbini Buonaccorsi

N

X

D e Cerchi

PLP

1285

X

X

Cerretani

PFP

Cerretesi

N

Chellini

N

1282

X

(9)

1751

P - 4

M1500 N(5)19

1762

NCIT

NC(21)1

X

1751

1779

NCIT

NC(I8)2I

X

1751

1855

1349

Cerpelloni

(10)

(7)

1412

Ceffi Ceffini

(4)

(3)

INFORMATION

1751

X

P - 4

M 1 3 9 NC(5)20

X

p+ 4

M742

1763

p+ 4

M 2 0 NC(13)5

1761 1773

X

X

O-U

NC(18)22

NCIT

NC(18)20

M1277

Chiarucci

1400

P+ 4

Ciacchi

1385

P+ 4

M1122

P+ 4

MII47

p+ 4

M1194

p+ 4

MI338

Ciacchi

PFP

1386

Clai

1389

Ciantellini

1430

Ciari

1344

D e l Cica

1377

Cicciaporci

PFP

1449

Cignamochi

1347

C i n i D i Matteo

PFP

Cionacci

PFP

Coletti

N

p+ 4

M653

X

P+ 4

M966

1822

p+ 4

M 1 2 9 7 NC(2)8

p+ 4

MI4II

X

p+ 4

M709 M1315

1416

X

X

p+ 4

1417

X

1615

P+ 4

MI317

1713

p+ 4

M723

X

p+ 4

MI39I

1770

p+ 4

M962 NC(J)2I

NOT

NC(I8)23

P+ 4

MI

o-u

NC(I8)23

1441

C o c c h i Donati

1376

1751

X

1755

X

1404

Delle C o l o m b e

1762

N

Comi

1397

Compagni

PFP

Comparini

N

Compiobbesi Coppoli

NP PFP

Corboli

NP

PFP

262

P+ 4

MI

X

1751

1755

P+ 4

M192 NC(9)8-9

X

X

1752

1782

NCIT

NC(I8)25

P+ 4

M979

X

1286

X X

X

X

1752

X

1760

X

1404

Corsellini

290

1289

1378

Corbellini

Corsi

1751

1348

D e l Cittadino

Colson

X

1408

Cienni Cini

X

1354

X

X

X

369

1751

1777

NCIT

NC(2)9

P+ 4

M I 51

NOT

NC(I3)6

P+ 4

M1287

P+ 4

M795 NC(5)22-23

APPENDIX B (I)

Corsi

N

Corsini

PFP

Cortigiani

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

1290

X

X

X

NP

C o v o n i Betti

PLP

Cresci

1303

X

Dandi

NP

X

Dati Squarcialupi

PLP

1380

Davanzati

PFP

1320

Dazzi

PFP

1437

Delfini

1362

Deti

1335

D a Diacceto

OTPN

NC(18)24

1751

p+ 4

M 2 I 2 NC(2)10

P+ 4

MI45

N

Dini

PFP

Di Dino

1370

p+ 4

MI05I

X

1751

1807

NCIT

NC(18)1

1782

1849

NCIT

NC(8)6-7

X

X

X

1751

1767

p - 4

M I O 4 7 NC(2)11

1838

P+ 4

M 5 2 4 NC(9)10

1751

1812

p+ 4

M I 3 6 5 NC(9)10BIS

X

p+ 4

M851

P+ 4

M599

p+ 4

M264

1770

o-u

NC(I9)1

1751

P+ 4

M 9 1 4 NC(5)26

Donnini

N

Duranti

1469

X

X

De Empoli

X

MI3I6

o-u

NC(I9)2 MI23I

1604

p+ 4

1751

1859

P - 4

MI 446 NC(5)27

1763

1819

NCIT

NC(I9)3

X

P+ 4

M1018

1379 N

P+ 4

1847

X

1764 1393

PLP

1752

X

N

Fabbri

N

Fabbrini

X

PLP

Fabbrini

N

Fabbrini

NP

Fagiuoli

X

P+ 4

1764

O-U

NC(i9)6

1771

1776

O-U

NC(I9)J

p+ 4

MI424

1766

ACIT

NC(I3)8

1787

NCIT

NC(58)3

1788

X

1313

Fagni

1851

O-U

NC(43)l2

1598

P+ 4

M452

P+ 4

M276

1295 N

Falconi

X

NCIT

NC(I9)7

P+ 4

MJ72

1603

P+ 4

MI394

1812

P+ 4

M32 NC(63)I

1758

X

1327

Falconi

1442

Falconieri

PFP

Falcucci

PLP

Fantoni

1282

1786 1759

X

1391 PLP

X

370

NC(I9)4

1752

1457

Fabbrini

NCIT

MII89

1389

Fabbreschi

(66)5

1752

1417

Doni

M390 NC(5)24-25

1824

N

Doffi

NC(65)6

p-4

1751

X

X

OTPN

X

1294

Dieudonne

Fantoni Naldi

1773

1380 N

Falagiani

X

(10)

(9)

1790

D'Ambra

Durazzini

(2)

(8)

1402

C o s i D e l Voglia

Dithmar Di Smidweiller

(7)

1759

ACIT

NC(I3)9

p+ 4

M I 209

ACIT

NC(6) I

SUMMARY (1)

(2)

(3)

Fati

1376

Federighi

PPP

1346

Federighi

PLP

Federighi Gigliozzi Fedini Feroni

X

1784

(10)

(9)

1831 1764

p+ 4

M959

P+ 4

M700 NC(9)12-I3

ACIT

NC(9)I4

ACIT

Nc(9)11

PFP

M1260 NC(9)15

1754

NCIT

NC(9)16

NP

1397 X

PLP

Fieravanti

1344

D a Filicaia

PFP

1284

Delia Fioraia

X

X

p+ 4

M332

1776

p-4

M890 NC(13)10

1608

P+ 4

M651

X

X

X

1754

X

1751

1371 PFP

Foggiborghi

N

Fontebuoni

N

OTPN

NC(6)2

1751

1818

p+4

M440 NC(6)3

X

1773

1814

NCIT

Nc(I9)8

1762

1814

O-U

Nc(I9)9

D e l Forese

1298

p+ 4

M1186

p+ 4

M185

NCIT

NC(2)L2

P+ 4

MII38

1774

P+ 4

M I 2 8 6 NC(9)L7

X

X

1759

X

1760

1386 PFP

1403

X

X

X

1751

p+ 4

MI28I

1762

o-u

NC(L9)L0

1754

MAGN

NC(9)I8

1400

Francesci D i Vaio Francois

N

Franzesi

PLP

X

P+ 4

M1318

P+ 4

M I 2 7 NC(2)L3-I4

P+ 4

M976

O-U

NC(67)5

p+ 4

M I 3 8 7 NC(2)I6

o-u

NC(70)L

1607

p+ 4

MI369

1775

MAGN

NC(IO)I

1417

D e l Frasca PFP

D i Fronte

1285

X

X

X

1751

1378

Fulger

N

Gabburri

PFP

Gabellotti

NP

Gaddi

PFP

Gaetani

PLP

G a l e f f i Cappelletti

NP

Galeotti

N

P+ 4

1312

1389

NP

M I 0 8 NC(13)11-12

M921

1853

Forese

Fortini

p+ 4

1755

X

NP

Firidolfi D a Panzano

1792 1440

1765

X

1778

1797 1437

X X

X

Galganetti

N

Galilei

PFP

Galli

NP

X

Galli Tassi

NP

X

Galluzzi

X

1752

(8)

p+ 4

Fiaschi

Frescobaldi

X

(7)

1766

1366

Franceschi Delia Mercanzia

X

(6)

PLP

1302

Forti

(5)

1752

Ferrucci

Delia Fioraia

(4)

INFORMATION

1751

X

1772

OTPN

NC(27)LO

X

1751

NCIT

NC(I9)II

NCIT

NC(5I)I4

X

1751

1842

P+4

M 1 0 5 7 NC(6)4

1751

1863

NCIT

NC(IO)2-3

O-U

NC(IO)3

P+ 4

MI353

1762

X

1381

X

1759 X

1435 371

APPENDIX B (0

(2)

Ganucci

PLP

Ganucci

NP

Del Garbo

(3)

(4)

X

(6)

(7)

(8)

X

1757

1821

X

1757

(5)

1358

Gatteschi

N

Gaulard

N

Gavard Des Privets

N

1764

Geppi

PLP

X

1751

Geppi

NP

X

Gerini

PFP

Gervais

N

Gherardesca

PLP

Gherardi Piccolomini

PFP

Gherardini

PLP

Gherardini Delia Rosa

PFP

X

X

1410

X

X

X

1352

X

X

1303

X

X

1756

1764

1751

X

ACIT

Nc(13)13

NCIT

NC(13)14

P+ 4

M828

NCIT

NC(19)12

O-U

NC(I9)I3

1813

O-U

NC(I9)I4

1764

ACIT

NC(L4)1

1764

OTPN

NC(14)1

1751

P+ 4

MI306 NC(l4)2

1753

O-U

NC(I9)I5

1751

MAGN

NC(6)5

P+ 4

M782 NC(6)6

X

1751

X

(10)

(9)

X

1743 X

MAGN

NC(6)7

P+ 4

M385

Gherucci

1343

p+ 4

M630

Giachi

1372

P+ 4

M930

Giachinotti

1443

p+ 4

M117

Giacomim Tebalducci

PFP

1414

Gianfigliazzi

PFP

1384

Gianni

PFP

1313

Giglioli

N

Gilkins

NP

Gilles

N

Ginori

PFP

1344

Del Giocondo

PFP

137s

Di Giore

1768

p+ 4

M1311

X

X

1751

1798

p+ 4

M1075 NC(IO)6

X

X

1751

1821

p+ 4

M448 NC(2)7

1752

1845

O-U

Nc(9)17

1792

1805

O-U

NC(67)9

X

1758

X X

X

X

X

NC(I9)I8

1833

p+ 4

M640 Nc(i4)3~5

1676

p+ 4

M956

X

p+ 4

M1224

1762

1845

NCIT

NC(I9)I8

1754

X

NCIT

NC(48)II

1752

X

Giovagnoli

N

X

Giovangnoli N o m i

N

Giovanni

X

1763 1435

PFP

Girolami

1396

X

1751

X

1282 PFP

1296

X

X

X

Giugni

PFP

1291

X

Giunta Bindi

PFP

1451

X

D i Giunti Modesti

NP

1751 X

O-U

NC(63)I3

P+ 4

MI355

1753

P+ 4

M1253 NC(I4)6

1604

P+ 4

M7 NC(6)8

1786

P+ 4

M289

p +

M 2 2 I NC(6)8

1751 1789

372

NC(IO)5

O-U

1392 N

Girolami Orlandini

1752

X

Giorgi

Giraldi

X

X

4

P+ 4

MI4I6

O-U

NC(64)9

SUMMARY

(1)

(2)

Giuntinelli

NP

Giuntini

(3)

(4)

Giusti

NP

X

N

X

Gondi

PFP

Gori

PLP

D i Grazia

(6)

(7)

(8)

1791

1807 X

X

NP

Grifoni

PLP

Grobert

N

Guadagm

PFP

NC(53)2I

M 1 3 7 9 NC(6)9

P - 4

M 1 4 1 2 NC(14)7

p+ 4

M1213

1450

X

X

1751

D i Gualberto

1409

Guardi

1443

Guasconi

PFP

Guasconti

PLP

Guazzesi

NP

Guerrini

N

Guicciardim

PFP

Guidacci

X

1793 1751

1314

X

X

X

X

X X

1302

X

X

1346

PLP

Guidi

O-U

Nc(19)19

p+ 4

M 2 0 2 NC(14)8

p+ 4

MI300

X

p+ 4

M1403

1751

1757

P+ 4

M463 NC(I4)9

1762

1787

ACIT

NC(I4)II

1782

X

NCIT

NC(38)I3

1751

NCIT

NC(L9)2I

X

1751

P+ 4

M366 NC(2)l8

1669

P+ 4

M1448

1771

p+ 4

M692 NC(2)19

p+ 4

MIO78

ACIT

NC(42)17

P+ 4

MI45I

1751

X

1782

X

1470

X

Guidotti

PFP

1400

X

Guiducci

PFP

1344

X

Guiducci

N

Havet

N

Hayre

NC(6) 11

X

X

X

NC(68)

ACIT

1752

1382

Guidi

1796

NCIT

1751

1470 PFP

NC(42)15

P+ 4

1751

X

M1345

NCIT

X

1289

NC(66)5

NCIT

X

X

o-u P+ 4

1786

1438

X

(10)

(9)

1764

1391

Grazzini

Guidi

(5)

1432

Goggi

Guidetti

INFORMATION

P+ 4 p+ 4

X

MI280

M644

1755

NCIT

NC(I9)25

1767

OTPN

NC(I8)6

N

1770

O-U

NC(I8)5

Humbourg

N

1770

1856

O-U

N C ( 2 L ) 19

Incontri

NP

1751

1781

NCIT

NC(L4)L2

Inghirami

NP

1782

X

OTPN

NC(52)24

Inghirlami

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

168

1387

p+ 4

MI

Jacopi

1373

P + 4

M935

Dijacopo D'Agnolo

1437

P+ 4

M1346

Kaiser

N

1765

Laguerre

N

1764

Landi

1384

Landi

PLP

Lanfranchi Rossi

NP

1762 1793

X

373

O-U

NC(I8)I7

1810

O-U

NC(L9)20

1650

P+ 4

MIIL8

1833

ACIT

N C ( 6 ) 12

OTPN

NC(68)

APPENDIX B (I)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Lanfredini

PFP

1334

X

Lapaccini Lapi

PFP

(8)

(9)

1754

1741

P+ 4

M594 NC(2)20

1605

P+ 4

M1196

1722

p+ 4

M948

X

p+ 4

MI267

X

P + 4

MI332

o-u

NC(67)12

X

1374 1424

1792

NP

Lenzi

1386

Lenzi

1438

Lenzoni

PFP

Leonetti

NP

Leoni

1442

1641

X

Ligi Lippi Lippi N e r i

PFP

Lorenzi

NP

Lorini

1751

p+ 4

M1399 NC(IO)8

O-U

NC(53)23

1596

P+ 4

M560

P - 4

M1515

X

p+ 4

M964

X

p+ 4

M946

NCIT

NC(2)2I

M751 NC(2)2I

1751

1531

X

X

1350

X

X

X

1782

X

1751

1755

P+ 4

1793

1823

NCIT

NC(68)

P+ 4

M570

p+ 4

M359

1327

Lotti Guidi

PFP

Lottinger

N

Lucalberti

1301

X

X

1753 1345

Luccarini

N

Luci

NP

X

X

M1376

1764

1374 NP

M1136

P + 4

X

1376

Lippi

p+ 4

X

1326 PLP

(10)

(7)

1398

Lapini

Libri

(6)

1389

Lapini Lauger

(5)

NC(6)I3

o-u

NC(I9)23

P+ 4

M68O

X

1751

X

NCIT

NC(I9)24

X

1761

1835

OTPN

Nc(i4)i4

Lulli

1393

X

P+ 4

M1234

Delia Luna

1372

1645

p+ 4

M931

1847

NCIT

NC(5

p - 4

M 1 2 4 8 NC(I5)I

Luperelli

N

Macciagnini

PLP

X

1762

1395

1752

Machiavelli

PFP

1283

Macinghi

PFP

1392

D e l Maestro

N

X

1750

p+ 4

M69

1751

1800

P + 4

M I 2 2 5 NC(2)2

1752

1751

o-u

NC(20)l

X X X

1)20

D e l Maestro Luca

1468

p+ 4

MI445

Magaldi

1305

P + 4

M409

Magalotti

PFP

Maggio

NP

Malaspina D a Mulazzo

PLP

Malavolti D e l Benino

NP

Malegonnelle

PFP

1304

Mancini

PFP

1284

1283

X

X

1711

P + 4

M72

1751

1767

NCIT

NC(3)I

X

1759

1817

MAGN

NC(3)2

X

1751

OTPN

NC(3)3

X X X

X

X

1751

X

374

1767

P + 4

M400

p+ 4

M74 NC(6)I4

SUMMARY (I)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Manetti

PFP

1337

X

PFP

1343

Mannetti

PFP

1441

Mannini

PFP

1369

Mannucci Mannucci Manovelh Marchionni

N PFP N

Martellini Martin

1755 1752

1287

X

X

X

1768

PFP

1343

PLP

1473

N

Martini

X

X

X

M1393 NC(3)5

p+ 4

M912

X

p+ 4

M1022

X

O-U

NC(54)I

X

P+ 4

MI358

p+ 4

M63

1771

OTPN

NC(20)2

NCIT

NC(20)3

1606

P+ 4

MI67

X

NCIT

NC(20)4

X

P+ 4

M416

1754

1775

NCIT

NC(3)6

1751

1752

P+ 4

M 6 1 8 NC(15)5

1751

1864

P-4

M1489 NC(3)7-8

NCIT

NC(20)5

P+ 4

M738

1708

P+ 4

MI337

1751

X

M623 NC(3)5

p+ 4

X

X

M198

1782

X

X

p+ 4 1831

X

X

NP

M640

1751

1307

Marsili

p+ 4

P+ 4

X

N

Marignoli

Martelli

X

(10)

(9)

(8)

1751

1762 1283

Marsili

(7)

1379

Mannucci C o r i

Marmi

X

N

1436

Marchi

(6)

1289

Mangioni Mannelh Galilei

(5)

INFORMATION

1349

Martini

PFP

1428

X

Martini D'Agostino

PFP

1382

X

1752

1802

p+ 4

M 1 0 8 0 NC83)9

Martini Gucci

PFP

1373

X

1751

1800

p+ 4

M939 NC(I5)6

X

1752

1783

X

179s

X

1752

1847

X

1753

1830

NCIT

NC(20)6

X

1752

NCIT

NC(20)7 MI3I4

1405

Martini D i R o s s o Marucelli

PFP

Marulli

NP

Marzi Medici Marzichi Masetti

NP N N

1438 1519

X

X

X X

292

p+ 4

MI

p+ 4

M1382 NC(I5)7-8

O-U

NC

NCIT

NC(IS)4

Masi

1416

X

P+ 4

Masini C e f f i

1412

X

P+ 4

1848

NCIT

NC(LO)9

P+ 4

MI289 NC(l5)LO

1814

P+ 4

M 9 7 0 NC(L0) 1 1

P+ 4

M234 N c ( i 5 ) n - i 3

O-U

NC(67)I6

p+ 4

M1052

D e l Mazza

N

Mazzei

PFP

1405

PFP

1377

D e Medici

PFP

1291

Medici D i Z a r a

NP

Mazzinghi

1756

X

1751

1751

X X

X

X

1751

X

1792 1661 1766

N

1361

D e Mezzola Michelozzi

X

1380

Melhni D e Meurers

X

X

PFP

1386

X

1751

X

375

MI308

O-U

NC(20)8

X

p+ 4

M843

1710

p+ 4

M I I 4 5 NC(3)LO-I2

APPENDIX B

(I)

(2)

Mighorati

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

p+ 4

M581

OTPN

NC(54)4

1394

P+ 4

M1238

p+ 4

MI158

X

1329

1765

N

Del M i g l i o r e Migliorotti Migliorucci

N

Minerbetti

PFP

Mini

1283

X

X

1770

o-u

NC(20)9

X

1751

1793

P+ 4

M82 NC(IO)I3-I4

p+ 4

M1441

1768

1808

ACIT

NC ( 1 5 ) 1 5

1752

1782

ACIT

NC(20)10

P+ 4

M1192

1441

Mini

PLP

Mini

N

Miniati

(10)

(9)

00

Michi

(3)

X 1389

Miniati

N

1753

1863

o-u

NC(20)11

Miniati D i D i n o

PFP

1751

1767

p+ 4

M824 NC(6)15

Moneta

N

o-u

NC(20)12

Da Montalvo Ramirez Monti

NP

NCIT

NC(15)6

1357

1765 X

X

X

1751

1412

M o n t i D i Puglio

1860 X

1323

P+ 4

MI309

p+ 4

M547

Morali

NP

X

1788

OTPN

NC(43)9

Morali Franchini

N

X

1788

OTPN

NC ( 4 3 ) 1 0

X

1751

p+ 4

M 1 1 6 1 NC(6)I6-I7

X

1766

O-U

NC(20)13

X

1751

P+ 4

M 3 3 5 NC(IO)IS

X

1761

NCIT

NC(20) 14

X

1751

P-4

M564 NC(3)II

1767

o-u

N c ( 2 0 ) 15

1751

P-4

M I 1 9 1 NC(I4)6

p+ 4

M755

P+ 4

M957

NCIT

NC(66)7

Morelli

PFP

Moresi

N

M o r i Ubaldini

PFP

Mormorai

N

Mozzi

PLP

Muzzi Rufignani

N

Naldini

PLP

Nardi

1387

X

1300 X

1334

X

1389

X

1200

1350

Nasi

PFP

1375

X

X

Nati Poltri

NP

X

X

X

1791

Navarez Soavedra

NP

X

X

1752

1761

NCIT

NC(I5)I8

Nelli

PLP

1348

X

1751

1854

p-4

M726 NC(IS)I9

Neretti

PFP

1447

X

1751

1786

P+ 4

M 1 4 0 8 NC(IO)I6

N e r i Badia

N

OTPN

NC(44)I5

p+4

M1108

Nerini

1762 1383

Nerli

PFP

1437

Del Nero

PFP

1382

N e r o n i Dietisalvi

X X

X

1751

X

X

1751

X

X

1751

X

X

1754

1816

1291

N e r o n i Mercati

N

N e r v i Pisani

N

Nesi

X

1667

1377

1773 X

376

p+ 4

M I 3 6 1 Nc(3)l2

p+ 4

M1088 N c ( 3 ) i 3 - i 4

p+ 4

M240

NCIT

N C ( 2 0 ) 17

NCIT

NC(3I)7

P+ 4

M973

SUMMARY (2)

(3)

Niccolini Sirigatti

PFP

1356

D e l Nienti M o s c h i

N

D e Nobili

PFP

(1) D i Niccola

INFORMATION

(5)

(6)

(7)

P +

4

M656

X

X

X

1751

P +

4

M810

1780

o-u

(8)

1344

Nomi

X

1355

X

NP

Nucci

N

Obizzi

NP

Orlandi

PFP

1345

Orlandini

PFP

1420

Orsini

N

Paganelli

PFP

1784

1751

X

1344

Novelucci

X

X X

x

X X

N C ( 2 0 ) 17

NCIT

NC(L

1752

P+ 4

M662 NC(7)1

p +

MI48

1664 1751

MI325

OTPN

NC(3L)11

1778

p +

4

M I 2 NC(3)L5

p +

4

MI024

p +

4

M1020

1386

X

Palmieri

PFP

Palmieri Delia Camera

NP

D e l Pancia

X

1751

NCIT

1404

X

1752

PLP

Pandolfini

PFP

X

1483

X

X

1381

X

X

1751 X

1751

1408

Panuzzi

1784

1437

Papi

N

Parenti

NP

P+ 4

M573 NC(I6)I

o-u

NC(66)9

p +

1751

X

1798

1789

M8OI

MI478 NC

P+ 4

M1071

p +

MI

P +

X

4

4

o-u

1751

X

NC(53)8 N C ( 2 0 ) 19

P+ 4

p - 4

X

N

D i Paolo D i Jacopo

1825

1791 1354

Panciatichi

Panzanini

1774

OTPN

1328

D e l Palagio

4

5)20

P+ 4

1782

X

M642

OTPN

1379

N

M805 NC(IO)I7

1752

Pagnini Pagolini

4

1771

X

NP

4

p +

NC(I4)7

Paganotti Pagnini

p +

NCIT

X

1372

NC(6)I8

M NC(20)15

1765

1286

Orlandini

(10)

(9)

(4)

NC(I6)3~5

298

NC(20)L8 4

o-u

MI367 NC(20)20

NCIT

NC(64)IO MI

Pangi

1448

1686

p +

Particini

1400

1647

P+ 4

1799

NCIT

NC(I6)7

P+ 4

MII33

o-u o-u

NC(49)I2

NCIT

NC(20)2I

P+ 4

M 1 8 5 NC(I6)8-9

P+ 4

M 1 2 5 NC(I6)IO

P+ 4

MI352

Pasquali

NP

Pasquini Passerini

X

1 7 52

NP

Paur D e A n k e n f e l d N

1791

X

1766

Pavini

N

Pazzi

PFP

1288

X

X

Pecori

PFP

1284

X

X

Pedoni

1771

X

1385

X

1751 X

1743

1752 1610

1434 377

4

409

MI282

NC(I6)6

APPENDIX B (4)

(I)

M

(3)

Pegolotti

PFP

1393

(5)

(6)

(8) X

p+ 4

M684

1751

1808

P-4

M1483 NC(I6)II

X

o-u

NC(20)22

p+ 4

M 3 5 0 NC(7)2

p+ 4

M834

X

1486

Pelli Bencivenni

PLP

Pelligrini

N

1763

PFP

1751

Pepi

1301

Peri

1359

Perini

PLP

1474

PFP

1283

Peruzzi

X

X

(9)

X

X

(10)

(7)

X

1766

P-4

M1461

X

1751

p+ 4

M 9 1 NC(7)4

p+ 4

M903

p+ 4

M1425

1626

NC(10)19

Pescioni

1368

Petrini

1459

Petrucci

PFP

1425

X

1704

p+ 4

MI333

Pieri

PFP

1407

X

1641

p+ 4

M1296

Pieri D i D i n o Pierucci

1434

X

N

Pilli

X

1752

1288

D a l Pino

1708

1394

Pitti/Pitti G a d d i

PFP

D e Poirot

N

Popoleschi

PFP

Portigiani

NP

Portinan

PFP

Dalle Pozze

N

Pucci

PFP

Pucci Del Chiassolino

1283

1396

X

X

X

1282

X

1755

X

1751

1824

X

1751

1788

X

1757

X

X

1763

X

1396

X

X

X

I7S2

1408

1500

Puccini

1382

X

Puccini

1419

Del Pugliese

PFP

1463

Quaratesi

PFP

1317

D a Rabatta

PFP

1321

Raffacani

128s

Redditi

1397

Delia Rena

PFP

Delia Rena

N

Ricasoli

PLP

1305

X

p+ 4 P+ 4

M51 NC(3)16-21

o-u

NC(20)24-25

p+ 4

M115

NCIT

NC(7)5-6

p+ 4

M22

NC(IO)I8

O-U

NC(20)26

P+ 4

M1251 N C ( 1 6 ) 1 2 13

p+ 4

M1299

p+ 4

MIO83

p+ 4

MI322

M1434 NC(3)22

1748

p+ 4

1762

p+ 4

M470 NC(3)23-25

X

1751

X

p+ 4

M533 Nc(i6)i4

X

X

1751

X

X

1751

Ricasoli Baroni

PLP

X

X

X

1751

PLP

X

X

X

1751

Ricci

N

D e Ricci

PFP

Ricci Albani

M181 MI24I

1759

1778

1752 1754 1848

1777 X

p+ 4

1751

Riccardi

1298

NC(20)23

X

X

1468

MI347

OTPN

X

1502

X

p+ 4

1751

X

1294

1844 X

378

p+ 4

MI33

P+ 4

MI265

P+ 4

M403 NC(I6)I5

NCIT

NC(2L)L

p-4

MI440 NC(L 1)1

MAGN

NC(7)7

ACIT

NC(I6)I6

OTPN

NC(2L)2

P+ 4

M318 NC(7)8 (16)18

P+ 4

M255

SUMMARY

(1)

(2)

(3)

Ricciardi Serguidi

PLP

1451

D e l Ricciobaldi

PLP

Ridolfi Del Ponte

PFP

(4)

X

PFP

1290

R i d o l f i D i Piazza

PFP

1321

Rigogli

PLP NP

(6)

X

1287

Ridolfi Di B o r g o

Rilli Orsini

(5)

INFORMATION

X

(8)

1751

1803

P - 4

M 1 4 1 6 NC(I6)I7

1751

1772

ACIT

NC(4)1

1751

1758

p+ 4

M164 NC(4)3

1727

p+ 4

M208

1751

p+ 4

M 5 3 5 NC(4)2

1768

ACIT

NC(I6)I9

1827

NCIT

NC(7)9

X

P+ 4

M1291 NC(I7)I NC(21)2

X X

X

X

1779

X

1405

Del Rimba

(9)

Rimbotti

PLP

1751

ACIT

Rimbotti

N

1763

OTPN

PFP

1282

1751

Rmieri

PFP

1284

X

X

Rinuccini

PFP

1347

X

X

PFP

1302

X

X

Rinaldi Generotti

Risaliti Ristori Roffia

X

X

X

1751

1352 NP

1764

X

(10)

(7)

1784

P+ 4

M 3 0 NC(17)2

P + 4

M102

1848

P+ 4

M714 NC(7)10-11

1710

p+ 4

M381

1573

p+ 4

M821

1783

NCIT

NC(11)2

1661

P+ 4

MI34I

1751

1784

p+ 4

M 2 8 2 NC(17)3

1751

1774

NCIT

NC(21)2

OTPN

NC(69)12

Romoli

1430

Rondinelli

PFP

1296

Rossi

N

Rossi D a Piantravigna

N

D e Rossi

PLP

1285

X

1751

p - 4

M 1 3 5 NC(4)4

D e Rossi

N

X

X

1755

1848

NCIT

NC(21)3

Del Rosso

NP

X

X

1777

1783

NCIT

NC(4)5-6

P+ 4

M938

Del Rosso Fornaciai

X

X

1795

X

1373

D e l R o s s o Pieri

p+ 4

M1007

1752

1794

P + 4

M1112

1751

1789

NCIT

NC(I7)4

P+ 4

M373 NC(11)3 (40)3

P+ 4

M1269

p+ 4

M596

1784

NCIT

NC(21)4

MI436

1378

D e l R o s s o Vaiai

PFP

Roti

NP

X

1384 X

Rucellai

PFP

1302

X

X

Rustichi

PFP

1398

X

X

Sacchetti

PFP

1335

X

X

Sacchettini

N

1751 X X

1752

X

X

NC(17)6

Sali

1464

1613

P+ 4

Salucci

1401

1618

p+ 4

MI284

NCIT

NC(I7)8

Salvatici

NP

Salvetti Salvetti

X

X

PFP

1435

X

PFP

1444

Salvetti

NP

Salviati

PFP

1781

X

X

X

MI356

p+ 4

M1404

OTPN

NC(7)12

1813

P+ 4

M303 NC(7) 1 4 - 1 5

1777

X

1297

P+ 4 X

X

379

1751

APPENDIX B (4)

(1)

(2)

(3)

Salvini

PLP

1396

Samminiati

PLP

1344

Sapiti

1351 N

Sassi Sassi

Scalandroni Scaramucci Scaramucci

N

M1256 NC(4)8

P - 4

M NC(17)7

p+ 4

M654

p+ 4

M769

N

X

X

1751

N

X

X

1751

N

X

1769

NCIT

NC(2l)4

p+ 4

M676

O-U

NC(2l)5

p+ 4

M380

O-U

NC(2l)6

1783

NCIT

NC(2l)8

1783

NCIT

NC(21)8

1811

1765 X

1751

X

NP

X

X

1751 X

1379 PFP

Segni Guidi

1347

1791 X

1353

Schiattesi

Seratti

P - 4

1751

1770

1428

Seratti

1751

1302

1363

D e l Sera

1780 1751

1766

Scarlatti Rondinelli PFP

Segni

(9)

1753

N

D e l l o Scarfa D e l l o Sceltro Tinghi Schiantesche

(8)

X

X

X

1447

NP N N

1524

X

X

1751

X

1756

N

Sernigi

PFP

1390

Serragli

PFP

1325

Serristori

PFP

1392

X X X X

Serzelli

PLP

Sesti Seticelli

N N

Settimanni

N

P+ 4 P+ 4

M1339 N C ( 4 ) 9 - I O

P + 4

M790

NCIT

Nc(11)4

P+ 4

MI025

P+ 4

M706

p+ 4

M1407

NCIT

NC(11)5 NC(2l)9

NC(63)S M1220

NCIT

Nc(46)19

1667

P+ 4

M1203

1684

p+ 4

M552

P + 4

M1217 NC(7)I6

1625

P+ 4

M961

1751

1376

NC(2l)7 M855

P+ 4

1753

X

NCIT

O-U O-U X

X

Sermolli

Sertini

1776

1787 1392

Serfranceschi

(10)

(7)

1345

Sassolini Sauboin

(6)

X

D i Santi Sarchi

(5)

1376

X

1751

1803

P - 4

M965 NC(7)I7

X

X

1751

1781

NCIT

NC(2L)8

O-U NCIT

1765

X

Signorini

1387

Silvestri

1436

Siminetti

PLP

Soderini

PFP

GO R>

Soldani

PFP

1343

Soldani Benzi

N

D e l Soldato

PFP

1751

X

1304

X X

X X X X 380

Nc(2l)ll

P+ 4

MI

P+ 4

MI359

164

1751

1795

P - 4

M398 NC(II)6

1751

1839

P+ 4

M88 NC(4)II

1674

P+ 4

M635

O-U

NC(2L)L2

p+ 4

MI

1753 1388

NC(2L)LO

X

173

SUMMARY (I)

(2)

(3)

Solosmei

1364

Da Sommaia

PFP

1350

Spina Falconi

PLP

1289

Spinelli

PFP

1327

PFP

1284

Sostegni

Spini

(4)

(5)

X

X

NP

X

Stiozzi

N

X

Stradi

1332

Dello Strinato

1438

Strozzi

1283

X

1752

X

X

1751

X

X

1752

PFP

1768

X

X

PFP

1328

X

X

Suarez Delia Conca

NP

X

X

X

Subbiani

NP

X

NP

PFP N

1424

X

D e l Teglia

1381

M568 Nc(7)19

P + 4

M111

X

P+ 4

M584

NCIT

NC(L7)10

NCIT

NC(21)13

P+ 4

M588

p+ 4

MI375

1814

M 9 4 NC(11)7-9

p+ 4

M576 N c ( 1 4 ) 1 3

NCIT

NC(L4)12

1782

NCIT

NC(34)21

1784

NCIT

NC(4)13

P+ 4

MI324

p+ 4

MI330 NC(l7)12

1751 1799

1729

NCIT

N C ( 2 L ) 14

X

P+ 4

MI417

o-u

NC(21)15

1769

p+ 4

X

M59 NC(17)11

1707

P+ 4

M1066

1307

Temperani

X

PLP

X

Teri

PLP

1427

Tolomei Biffi

PLP

1300

X

Tornabuoni

PFP

1445

X

X

Tornaquinci

PLP

1284

X

X

Torrigiani

X

X

1751

PFP

1454

X

X

P-4

M I 3 3 7 NC(LL)lO

p - 4

M NC(7)20

p+ 4

MIl8

p - 4

M I I 4 NC(L L)LI

1764

1751

1777

1397 X

N

X

NP

D e l Troscia

X

N

1439 X

MI420 NC(4)l4

p+ 4

MI44 NC(2L)l6

1795

o-u

NC(69)H

1751 381

M387

p+ 4

o-u

X X

P+ 4

1765

1431 PFP

M42O NC(I7)I3

1751

1303

Delia Tosa

P+ 4 ACIT

1751 1751

X

NC(11)7

MI323

1751

X

M591 M 1 9 9 NC(7)I8

p+ 4

1751

X

P+ 4 p - 4

1686

1763 1283

D e l T u r c o Roselli

M761

p+ 4

1751

N

PFP

Tucci

M871

P+ 4

P + 4

1753

X

X

PFP

D e La T o u r en Voive

X

X

Tedaldi

Tosi

P+ 4

1751

1451

Tanaglia

Torrigiani

1642

1420

D e l Suzzeca

Tempi

(9)

1420

Delia Struffa

Tavanti

X

(10)

(8)

1751

X

Delia Stufa

Tamburini

(7)

1330

Stendardi

Taddei Mancini

(6)

1388

Stefani Bettoni

Suterman

INFORMATION

1629

p+ 4

M1342

1615

p+ 4

M1386

1782

NCIT

NC(2L)L7

APPENDIX B

(I)

(2)

Ubaldini

PLP

X

PFP

1382

Ubertini Ughi

PLP

(3)

1331

(4)

(5)

X

X

X

X

X

X

(6)

(8)

(9)

1751

1804

MAGN

Nc(17)15-16

1682

P+ 4

M1095

1751

1783

p - 4

M586 N c ( 1 7 ) 1 7

1751

1833

p+ 4

M753 NC(4)19

1835

P+ 4

MI349 NC(7)2I

NCIT

Nc(21)21

p+ 4

M857

Ugolini

PFP

1350

X

X

Uguccioni

PFP

1434

X

X

1751

Ulivi

N

X

1753

D a Uzzano

X

1667

1363

Vaglienti

NP

Vai

NP

Valleron D'Orquevaux

NP

Valori

PFP

D i Vanm

X

1322

X

1754

OTPN

NC(4)15

1762

OTPN

NC(I7)I4

1799

O-U

NC(68)

1687

X

N

Vecchietti

PFP

1371

X

Velluti

PFP

1283

Venturi

PFP

1388

Verdi

N

Vernacci

PFP

1290

D e l Vernaccia

PLP

1493

D a Verazzano

PFP

1319

Vespucci

PFP

1350

Vettori

PFP

1320

X

D e l Vignia Piosperi

PFP

1291

X

X

P+ 4

M388

P+ 4

M1400

1764

O-U

NC(54)15

X

1751

p+ 4

M922 N C ( 1 1 ) 1 2

X

X

1756

p+ 4

M79 NC(4)16

X

X

1751

1817

P + 4

M 1 1 7 9 NC(11)13-

1756

1809

NCIT

NC(2l)18

1754

1442

Vavassori

(10)

(7)

15

Villani

1300

Del Vivaio Franceschi

1388

Viviani

P+ 4

M217 N C ( l 1 ) 1 4

X

1751

1794

P - 4

M I 4 9 3 NC(7)22

X

X

1751

1819

P+ 4

M509 NC(4)20

X

1752

P+ 4

M757 NC(II)I6

X

1751

P + 4

M518 NC(4)I7-I8

P + 4

M229

P+ 4

M804

P+ 4

M341

P+ 4

M I 174

1835

1671

1393 PLP

Delia Volta Ximines Di Aragona

1769

X

1355

Villani Stoldi

Viviani Delia Robbia

X

X

1306

X

X

X

X

X

X

1751

1425 NP

D e l Zaccaria

X

X

PFP

Zeti

N

1438

382

M413

NC(I7)I8

X

P + 4

MI334

1816

NCIT

NC(I7)I9

p+ 4

MI3I9

1751

1773

P+ 4

M I 3 7 7 NC(7)23

NCIT

NC(2l)20

1764

X

Ml

P - 4

1751

1417

Zati

227

P + 4

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396

Toscana

INDEX

Note:

N a m e s o f offices in Appendix A

and of

patricians and nobles in Appendix B have not been indexed. Anderson, P., 6

ABBONDANZA, 70, IO7-IO8, 1 1 9 , 258,

290; and provisioning, 2 4 6 - 5 1 , 2 5 9 -

Anforti, 60

260; Provveditore, 138; suppressed,

Annona, 292

292

Antella, Dell', 35, 80, 9 1 , 185

Academies, 32, 38, 78, 1 3 2 , 170, 277,

Antinori, 33n, 166, 188, I99n Anzilotti, A . , 7n, 78

2 7 9 - 8 2 , 333

Appointment: a mano, 7 3 - 7 7 , 1 1 7 ; at ear-

Acciaiuoli, 20, 4311, 142, 226

lier ages, 168, 1 7 1 , 1 8 3 - 8 6 ; in magis-

Accomandite, 2 0 5 - 1 5 Accoppiatori, 1 5 , 68, 73

tracies, 7 2 - 7 7 ; n e w procedures in

A d a m i , A n t o n Filippo, 278, 281

eighteenth century, 3 2 2 - 2 4 ; patron-

Agriculture, in Tuscany, 244-59

age in, 1 7 4 - 7 7 , 186-88; in permanent

Alamanni, 35, 1 7 7

offices, 82-83, 1 7 3 , 180; in Republi-

Albergotti, 29, 50

can staff, 1 7 2 - 7 3 ; rules f o r Republi-

Alberti, Degli, 2 1 , 3 8 - 3 9 , 254, 325; B r a c -

can staff, 82, 1 7 2 - 7 3 ; by sortition

cio, I99n, 260; C o u n t Vincenzo, 268,

criticized, 77, 1 3 1 - 3 2 ; through sub-

280, 284, 288

entry and reversion, see S o p r a v v i venze

Albizzi, Degli, 2 1 , 36, 170, 189 Aldana, D a , 27, 50

A r c h i v i o , 72, 95, 287, 306

Aldobrandini, 188

• Ardinghelli, 2 1

Alessandri, 2 1 , 150, 281

Arezzo, 56, 1 1 2 , 1 1 4 - 1 5 , 146, 2 5 7

Alessandro D e Medici (Duke), 24, 26, 39;

Arrighetti, 2 1 6

and n e w officials, 7 7 - 7 8 ; powers of

A r r i g h i A l a m a n n o , 85, 150, 1 7 7 , 189;

appointment, 7 2 - 7 3 Alfieri, Vittorio, 334

N i c c o l o , 85, 1 7 7 A r t e dei Guidici e Notai, Arte della Lana,

A l m e n i , Sforza, 27

Arte della Seta. See Guilds

Altoviti, 33, 142, 167, 179, 186, 187, 189

Ascani, 28

A m a d o r i , 45

Ascanio, D o n , 53

Ambrogi, 175

Assessor!, 80, 163

A m i d e i , C o s i m o , 309

Attavanti, 150, 1 7 5 , 2 1 7 , 220

A m m a n n a t i (architect), 42

Auditore Fiscale, 79, 87, 90, 1 0 1 , 149,

Amministrazione Generale delle Finanze,

305, 3 1 0 ; powers, 78-79; staff, 95;

294 A m m i r a t o , Scipione, 32, 129, 1 3 2 - 3 3

suppressed, 308 Auditore della C a m e r a , 78, 80, 87, 89, 147

Anchisa, Dell', 59 397

INDEX Auditore della Giurisdizione, 78, 95, 96

Buonarroti-Simoni, 2 1 7 , 222, 3 3 3 - 3 4

Auditore delle Regaglie e Possession!, 306

Buondelmonte, 190, 277, 3 1 4

Auditore di Benefizi e C o s e Ecclesia-

Buontalenti, Bernardo (architect and engineer), 42, 1 0 5 - 1 0 6

stiche, 96 Auditori, 1 4 7 - 4 8 , 1 6 2 - 6 3 ; o f C o s i m o I, 78; precedence for, 81

Buontalenti, Francesco, 83 B u o n u o m i n i di Collegio, 14, 67, 7 1 , 76, 185

Avernai, Giuseppe, 276 Azienda dei Lotti, 300

B u o n u o m i n i di S. Martino, 96

Azienda di Credito, 298

Bureaucracy, 4 - 8 , 65-66; in England, 5, 1 5 7 ; in France, 5, 87n, 124, 1 5 7 - 5 8 ; in G e r m a n y , 5, 124; in Prussia, 124;

BACCIO di A g n o l o (architect), 42

in Russia, 5, 1 5 7 - 5 8 ; in Tuscany:

Baglioni, R i d o l f o , 27

functional divisions in, 68, 287-90,

Baldovinetti, 189

3 4 0 - 5 7 , size of, 86-87, 1 2 2 - 2 4 , 2 8 6 -

Bande. See Ducal militia

87, 3 4 0 - 5 7 , sources f o r study o f , 84-

Bandini, Sallustio, 277, 278

85; patrimoniahsm in, 5 - 7 , 65, 1 5 7 -

Barbolani D a Montauto, 19, 50, 1 2 1

58, 3 1 3 , 3 2 1 , 337; rational-legal type, 5 - 7 . 65. 158. 3 1 3 . 320, 329, 337

Bardi, D e , 20n, 28, 34, 59, 149 Bartoli, 207, 2 1 1

Burnet, B i s h o p , 256

Bartolini-Baldelli, 60 Bartolini-Salimbem, 1 7 4 B a r t o l o m m e i , 59, 207, 2 1 1 , 2 1 6 - 1 7 , 2 2 1 , 267, 3 2 m

CALAMANDREI, G i u s e p p e , 3 1 9 , 323

Calderim, 34

Beccaria, Cesare, 309

Camarlinghi, 1 7 2

Belfredelli, 45

C a m b i , 34, 188

Benci, 45

C a m e r a Granducale, 306

Bene, Del, 142

C a m e r a del C o m u n e , 69

Benefiziati, 1 5 - 1 6 , 25, 46, 143

C a m e r a delle C o m u n i t a , 302

Benino, D e l , 45

C a m e r a di C o m m e r c i o , 287, 293, 306

Bertolini, Stefano, 2 8 1 - 8 2 , 333

C a m p a n a , 27; Francesco, 77, 78

B i f f i - T o l o m e i , 149, 279

Canigiani, 226

Bigallo, 96, 109, 123

Capitani, 14, 1 1 3 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 3 , 146

Bini, 22

Capitani di Parte Guelfa, 70, 1 0 5 - 1 0 6 ;

B o n f m i , 6 1 , 269

Auditore, 79; Provveditore, 149;

B o n s i , 22

suppressed, 287, 302

Borgherini, Vincenzo, 260

Capitano del P o p o l o , 68

B o r g h i n i , Vincenzo, 32

Cappello, Bianca, 88

B o t t a - A d o r n o , Antonio, 267, 284

C a p p o n i , 32, 36, 42, 142, 150, 166, 188, 204, 207, 226; Ferrante di Niccolo,

B o u r b o n D e l Monte, 19, 28, 60, 272

167, 199; Gino, 330, 333

Bracci, O n o f r i o , 149, 189 Bricchieri-Colombi, 60, 269

Carli, Gian Rinaldo, 278

Broccardi, 19

C a r l o B o r b o n e (King o f Naples), 5 2 - 5 3 , 275

B r o n z i n o (painter), 27 B r u n i , 34

Carnesecchi, 149, 1 7 2 , 1 7 5

Buonaccorsi, 50

Carpi, D a , Lione, 27 398

INDEX Casa di Correzione, 3 1 0

1 5 7 - 5 8 ; and patronage in appoint-

Catasto o f 1 4 2 7 , 1 9 - 2 1 , 30, 5911

ments, 1 7 4 - 7 7 ; and pluralism, 1 8 9 -

Catasto, project f o r new, 296-98

90

Cellini, Benvenuto, 27

C o r s i , 20, 4 1 , 2 1 3

Cerati, Gaspare, 276, 277

Corsini, 36, 42, 53, 170, 207, 333

Cerchi, D e , 19, 49, 59, 2 1 7 ; Alessandro,

Cortona, 1 1 2 , 1 1 4 - 1 5 , 146; patricians and

49, 149, 1 6 8 - 7 0 , 176, 187; Vieri, 49, 169

nobles in, 56 C o s i m o I D e Medici (Grand Duke), 7,

C h a b o d , F., 4, 190-91

26, 34, 99, 320; control over magis-

Christine o f Lorraine (Duchess of Ferdi-

tracies, 7 2 - 7 7 ; creation o f fiefs, 28; creation o f n e w citizens, 28, 48; e m -

nando I), 36, 40, 9 1 , 168

ploys l a w y e r s as secretaries and audi-

Church-State relations, 95-96, 272, 305 C i n q u e Conservatori del C o n t a d o , 70

tori, 7 7 - 8 2 ; enlarges territory o f

Cioli, Andrea, 9 1 , 149, 176, 180

state, 93; interaction with council-

Cionacci, 45

lors, 87-88; made Grand D u k e , 29; military preparations o f , 93; privi-

Citizenship o f Florence; under the D u c h y , 46-48, 5 5 - 5 6 , 1 4 4 - 4 5 ; under the R e -

leges extended to Livorno, 1 1 6 ; priv-

public, 1 4 - 1 6

ileges extended to Pisa, 1 1 5 ; reform o f government o f Siena, 120; and re-

C i v i l C o d e , project for, 54, 272

form of 1532, 25-26, 7 1 - 7 2

Clement X I I (Pope), 4 1 , 53 Collegio, 45, 48. See also B u o n u o m i n i di

C o s i m o II D e M e d i a (Grand Duke), 27, 2

Collegio C o l l o r e d o , Marchese Fabbrizio, 91

9 . 34. 9 i ; military involvement o f ,

93; R e g e n c y for, 36, 91

C o l l e g i o degli A v v o c a t i , 1 6 5 - 6 7

C o s i m o III D e Medici (Grand Duke), 49,

C o m m i s s a r i , 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 3 , 146, 308

52, 92, 96, 276

C o m m i s s a r i dei Quartieri, 3 1 0

C o s p i , Antonio, 1 3 3

C o m m u n a l Camarlinghi, 1 1 3 , 124; chan-

Council o f 200, 25, 53, 67, 1 3 5 , 1 4 1 ; func-

cellors, 1 1 3 , 1 2 3

tions, 68; and rotating magistracies,

Compagni, 21

7 1 , 73-7*5

C o m p a r i n i , 60

Council o f Finance, 267, 288

Concini, 48, 1 4 2 , 1 5 1 ; B a r t o l o m m e o , 8 8 -

C o u n c i l of Regency. See C o s i m o II; Ferdinando II; Francis Stephen o f L o r -

89, 148; Giovanbatista, 89, 147-48

raine

Conservatori di Legge, 69, 97, 148, 165; Auditore, 79-80; suppressed, 287

Council o f State, 9 1 - 9 2 , 267, 288

C o n s i g l i o M a g g i o r e o f 1494, 16, i8n, 25

Council o f War, 267

Constitutional project, 3 0 1 - 3 0 2 , 332

C o u r t o f Medici D u k e s , 2 7 - 2 9 , 3 4 - 3 7 , 4 8 - 5 1 , 55, 58, 1 3 5 - 3 6 ; officials of,

Consulta, 89, 274; Auditore, 1 5 2 ; staff, 95 Contado,

m-13

27, 3 4 - 3 5 , 1 0 6 - 1 0 7

C o n t i , 148; Giovanni, 8 1 , 84, 147

C o v o n i , S9

Conti, J a c o p o , 1 5 2 , I99n

C r a o n (Beauveau-Craon), Prince, 53,

C o p p o l i , 170, 189

266, 2 7 1

Corboli, 9on, 1 5 2

Criminal C o d e o f 1786, 302, 308-309

C o r r u p t i o n in office, 182, 192; counter-

Croce, B . , 4

acted by law courts, 192, 199; graft,

Curini, Antonio, 163

199, 260, 325; and patrimonialism,

C y b o , Innocenzio, 77 399

INDEX D'ARGENSON, 2 8 4 - 8 5

FABBRONI, A n g i o l o , 1 7 9

Dallington, Robert, 8711, 249-51

Fanne, 79, 100, 102, 294; Provveditore,

Dati, Giorgio, 1 3 2

149; Tassa del Macinato, 104, 299-

Davanzati, Bernardo, 132, 254

300

Decima, 69, 99-100, 205, 294-98; and

Fedecommessi, 2 2 1 , 226

Catasto of 1427, 69, 104; procedure

Ferdinando I D e Medici (Grand Duke),

for administering land tax, 1 0 4 - 1 0 5 ,

27, 34, 91; and agricultural improve-

2 1 5 - 1 6 , 222; Provveditore, 149; staff,

ment, 252, 254; and Baltic grain

1 0 4 - 1 0 5 ; suppressed, 287

trade, 2 5 1 - 5 2 ; encourages silk indus-

Decima Ecclesiastica, 96, 105

try, 238; foreign policy and war, 93;

Depositeria Generale, 100, 104, 193, 294,

interaction with councillors, 88;

300; Depositario Generale, 78, 80,

privileges extended to Livorno, 1 1 6 ;

148-49; growing revenue of, 100102; staff, 101

privileges extended to Pisa, 1 1 6 Ferdinando II D e Medici (Grand Duke),

Deputazione Sopra i Monasteri, 96

27, 34, 9 1 , 92; appoints patricians as

D i e d di Balia, 70

ducal secretaries, 149, 176; military

D i e d di Guerra, 15

involvement of, 93; Regency for, 34,

Distretto, 1 1 2 - 1 4 Dithmar Di Schmidweiller, 61, 3 i 7 n

36, 91 Ferdinando III of Hapsburg-Lorraine (Grand Duke), 298, 3 1 1 , 332

Divieti. See Officeholding Dogane, 69, 99-100, 102, 1 1 6 , 1 1 9 , 294, 298-99; staff, 104

Feroni, 50 Ferrucci, 45

Donati, 34

Feudal monarchy, 5 - 7 , 66

Doni, 207, 2 1 1

Feudal nobles, 19, 24, 27-28, 32, 52, i n , 1 1 2 , 272

Donnini, 34n Dovara, Luigi, 27, 88

Fiefs in Tuscany, 28, 34-36, 59, 90; p o w -

Ducal Domaine, 99, 105, 290, 294, 296 Ducal militia (Bande), 90-91, 124; Auditore, 79, 91; Banca Militare, 91

ers and privileges of, 36, 1 1 8 Filicaia, Da, 226; Vincenzo, 150, 167 Financial administration: at beginning of Duchy, 69-70; in eighteenth century,

Ducal secretaries: at court of Cosimo I, 78, 89; in seventeenth century, 9 1 -

290, 293-300; growth and size of

92. See also C o u n d l or Segreteria of

debt, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 ; Monti, 2 7 1 , 294-98;

State, Finance, War

patricians dominate offices in, 148, 1 5 0 - 1 5 1 ; permanent functionaries in, 99-107; policy of indirect taxation and borrowing, 99-103; in provincial

ECONOMIC decline: in Italy, 7, 203-204, 260-61; in Tuscany, 203-205, and

towns, 1 1 9 ; tax burden on capital

bureaucracy, 94, 144-45, 1 5 ° . 175

and provinces, 100; yield of taxation in 16th century, 99-100, in eight-

Education in law, 163-64, 170

eenth century, 100, 299-300

Elci, De, Count Orso, 91 Elizabeth Farnese (Duchess of Parma and Piacenza, Queen of Spain), 52 Enlightenment in Tuscany, 266, 275-82, 330

Fioravanti, 45 Fiorvigna, Francesco, 180-81 Fisco, 83, 308. See also Auditore Fiscale Florence, population size, 45-48

400

INDEX Florentine Republic, 1 3 - 2 3 ; staff under, 4,

Gherardini, 19

8 1 - 8 2 ; system of administration un-

Gheri, Goro, 77

der, 66-71

Giachinotti, I7n

Follini, Bartolommeo, 282, 334

Giacomini, Lorenzo, 32

Fontana (architect), 42

Gian Gastone D e Medici (Grand Duke),

Forti, 60

52, 92, 276

Forti, Francesco, 333

Gianfigliazzi, 2 1 , 35

Fossi, Ferdinando, 2 8 1 - 8 2 , 334

Gianni, 2 1 6 - 1 7 , 2 2 1 , 227; estates, 223-24,

Francheschi, 149, 207, 2 1 3 , 2 1 4

227; family income, 229-30; Fran-

Francesco I D e Medici (Grand Duke), 27,

cesco Maria, 268, 280, 298, 3 1 3 , 316,

34; interaction with councillors, 88;

330-33; Niccolo, 1 9 m , 227, 229-30

loans to Philip II of Spain, 93; statue

Giannotti, Donato, 67, 1 3 1

of justice in Piazza S. Trinita, 98

Gilles, 60

Francis Stephen of Lorraine (Grand Duke, Emperor), 53, 266, 283; Re-

Giminiani, Antonio, 179 Ginori, 20, 33, 142, 150; Marchese Carlo,

gency for, 52, 54, 56, political ar-

150, 267, 268

rangements under, 266-70, 274-275,

Giraldi, 2 5 1

316, reforms under, 270-75

Girolami, 150

Francois, 61, 3 1 7

Giugni, 2 1 , 35, 36

Franzesi, 19

Giurisdizionali, 96

French Revolution, 329-30, 332

Gondi, 33n, 4 1 , 142, 176, 186, 2 1 6 - 1 7 ,

Fulger, 61

2 2 1 - 2 2 ; Giovanbatista, 92, 149, 176 Gonfaloniere di Giustizia, 14, 25, 67

GABELLA del C o n t r a t t i , 69, 1 0 0 , 1 0 2 , 1 0 4 ,

Gonzaga, Marchese Carlo (Governor of

1 1 6 , 1 1 9 , 294; Provveditiore, 138 Gabella del Sale, 69, 100, 1 1 6 , 1 1 9 , 294; staff, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3

Siena), 1 2 1 Gori, 59 Grain: prices, 245-46, 257-58, 290-93;

Gabella delle Porte, 100

production, 246-47, 256; trade, 244,

Gaetani, 260, 325

250-52, 257-59, 284, 2 9 1 - 9 2

Galeotti, Leopoldo, 333

Gramsci, A . , 9

Galilei, 221

Grascia, 70, 1 0 7 - 1 0 8 , 1 1 6 , 1 1 9 ; Provvedi-

Galluzzi, Riguccio, 278, 280, 318

tore, 80; suppressed, 292

Gamurrini, Eugenio, 32

Grobert, 60, 268, 2 7 1 , 3 1 7

Ganucci, 60

Guadagni, 36, 207, 2 1 1 , 271

Gaulard, 60

Gualandi, Domenico, 163

Gavard des Privets, 6 1 , 3 1 7

Guardaroba, 106

General Administration, 70; permanent

Guasconi, 236

functionaries in, 1 0 7 - 1 0 9 Gente nuova in sixteenth-seventeenth

Guerrini, 60 Guicciardini, 20, 35, 36, 38-40, 42, 142,

centuries, 42, 45-48

177, 207, 2 1 1 , 2 1 6 - 1 7 , 222, 254; fam-

Gerini, 188

ily Decima assessments in 1534, 2 1 9 -

Gervais, 60, 3 1 7

20; Francesco di Piero, 39, 129; Giro-

Gherardesca, Della, 19, 60

lamo di Piero, 39-40, 43; Luigi di Pi-

Gherardi, 2 1 4

ero, 39-40 401

INDEX Guidi, 89, 147

teenth century, 1 5 9 - 6 7 ; training, 82, 1 6 2 - 6 6 , 308, 3 2 3 - 2 4

Guilds, 109; A r t e dei Giudici e N o t a i ,

Leoni, 45

1 6 4 - 6 5 , 1 6 7 , 323; see also C o l l e g i o degli A v v o c a t i ; Arte della Lana, 205,

Leoni, D o m e n i c o , 323

2 3 3 - 3 7 , 236; Arte della Seta, 205,

L e o p o l d o II o f Hapsburg-Lorraine

2 3 3 - 3 4 , 2 3 7 - 4 4 ; A r t i M a g g i o r i , 14;

(Grand D u k e ) , 3 1 1

and eligibility for office, 109; n u m -

Lesa maesta, 26, 79, 309

ber o f functionaries in, 109, 1 2 3 ; re-

L i b r i d i O r o , 5 5 - 5 7 , 6o-